To say that this is an interesting place is an understatement. The people, the geography and the culture are all fascinating. Good and amazingly fascinating and bad and horribly fascinating. Yet, I’ll leave that for another blog perhaps on westafricabound.org.
Anyway, I want to tell you about my first encounter with Mauritanian culture. It was at the airport as Rebecca and I sat down to get our Entry Visas. She went first and got a nice colorful Visa and a receipt for her 55 euros. I got asked repeatedly where I was from. At first, I thought it was just curiosity as this tall handsome pecan brown man asked, first in French then in English, “Where are you from?” I responded as I handed him my blue passport, “from the USA.” He repeated, “Where are you from?” I responded, “from the USA.” He said, “no really where are you from.” Seeing that he wanted another answer I said, “from Nigeria generations and generations ago.” That seemed to satisfy him and he handed me my passport with a black and white Visa and no receipt. Curious.
I then moved on to the next step for entering the country and went to the booth where the customs agent stood. I handed the Arab looking agent my passport and followed his instructions for fingerprinting. Then he called another Arab looking customs agent over to question me. They wanted to know where I was staying. The hotel name was written on my entry form so I told him the name of the hotel. They wanted to know why I was entering the country and I looked sideways at Rebecca. Then they wanted to know if I had family in Mauritania. Their first clue should have been my bad French.
Even when they had to switch to English to ask the questions the two men still would not believe that I was an American. It is a good thing that Rebecca was standing there with her blond hair and blue eyes. So when they asked again was I visiting family, Rebecca answered “no” for me. At that point I wasn’t sure what was happening. I simply said, “I am with her.” Reluctantly, I think? I got the stamp.
What I didn’t realize was the distinct history of Mauritania. I have traveled to many places in West Africa, yet this was new. The history of the country is rife with many of the assumptions found in my very own country. Being Beige and having the features that I do, means I am Black in the USA. In Mauritania it appears to most Mauritanians, that more than likely I am a Haratin and a descendant of a slave mother who may have been forced to have sexual relations with an Arab man. He would be considered White in this Northwest African country. As in the system of slavery in the USA, a persons slave status is inherited from their mother.
This means that if born in Mauritania, I could have been from a class of enslaved people; I am not talking about enslaved 200 years ago. I found out that only in 2007 was slavery considered a criminal act and not until 2015 were the first slaveholders in Mauritania persecuted.
It seems to me that Mauritania has some of the same notions about who is a slave and who is Black ie. ‘one drop rule’ that Americans have. These beliefs are just stated differently. Doing a quick google search, I found this statement from Brittanica.com “there is a long standing cultural assumption among the Bidian [White Arabs] that {B}lack Africans belong in a servile role.”
Being Beige means in many countries in Africa I am called “toubab” or whatever the local word is for white foreigner. In many places my Beige skin means I am thought of as being White and not Black. This is strange to me.
In Mauritania, my skin, my features, my hair means that I am the same as I am at home. I am not a part of the privileged Arab or European group. I don’t necessarily mind this. What I do mind is that people all over the world do not acknowledge that we who are descendents of enslaved Africans and have Beige skin are all over the world. We carry passports from many countries–countries of our birth– be it Brazil, Columbia, Cuba or the United States of America, just to name a few.
And their are many more people who are Beige that come from the loving union of two people — one of African and one of European descent. Still others who come from other places and regions with different ethnic backgrounds. Those who are from Asia, or Latin America. Being Beige is not just one thing it is many, various and a wonderful variety of things: cultures, customs and conditions.
That’s all I’ll say for now, I just wanted to tell you about being beige in Mauritania.
On Being Beige 