Race in Namibia and the United States

Having grown up in America, I have grown up accustomed to race having particular political significance.  For instance, people of color in America tend to be more liberal. Many of them have faced discrimination and believe in the necessity of corrective action. (I think of Ta-Nehisi Coates and reparations.) Of course, there are exemptions, but I have noticed these trends among the people I know and in the larger culture.  I have spent most of my life taking them as given.

That’s why I find it so interesting to think about how race might play a role in the politics of other countries. For instance, this week, I came across a column written by a black man Iipumbu Sakaria. Sakaria suggests that it isn’t Namibia’s lack of resources that hinders its development, but the lack of will among its people.  He argues that Namibians look for expertise from foreigners, rather than relying on the country’s well-trained graduates. In his mind, the tendency he observes comes from the country’s colonial history. Sakaria posits that, due to this history, Africans feel inferior to Europeans, and this manifests in everything from education to beauty to religion.

In my experience, Sakaria’s lines of thinking are not common in the U.S.  Sure, his view that “attitude determines altitude” recalls American ideals about being self-made and pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps. But it’s not common for people of color in the United States, especially those who have faced significant oppression, to express Sakaria’s views without caveats.  

Simultaneously, the idealization of whiteness that he talks about seems to pertain as much to America as it does to Namibia, which is incredibly interesting to me.  In the U.S., we talk about a changing culture and the changing demographics of our society. In the next half-century or so, we will no longer be a majority white country. But already, Namibia is nearly 90% black. The Namibian government is full of non-white leaders. And there is still a conversation happening about how whiteness is idealized. Which makes me wonder—if a black President and a majority black population don’t dismantle racial attitudes based in colonialism in Namibia—what can change those attitudes here in America?

By Mini

Sources:

https://www.newera.com.na/2018/02/23/developing-namibia-ideas-of-a-passionate-man/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Namibia