A darker shade of pale

Oyinbo is a tricky word, don’t you think? I have heard the word for as long as I have had Nigerian friends which is close to two decades. I was called one to my face the first time I visited Nigeria in 2009. “Oyinbo” kids will point at me, “oyinbo” grown men and women would shout across the road.

Over the years, I also came to understand the nuances of “oyinbo” – from smart to stupid, from “honest” to “loose”, oyinbo has so many shades of meaning that it is hard to tell whether you are complimented or insulted when someone openly identified your skin tone as a mark of the otherness and all the baggage that comes with it.

While over the years, I have come to accept that whether I like it or not I will get called “oyinbo”, there is a part of me which screams inside, “I have a name and it is not Oyinbo.” On occasions where I have been hassled by area boys I have even said it out loud as my Nigerian friends or family tried to spirit me away to avoid any further hassle my retort may inspire.

My anger sprains from the knowledge that just as the word “oyinbo” has many shades of meaning, the colour white too has many shades most Nigerians are unable to discern.
Recently there was a debate on my Facebook timeline after I shared a Teen Vogue article titles “ White Women Are Less Likely to Protect Black Women from Sexual Assault, Study Finds”. A white South African friend was rightfully offended by the generalisation in the headline and throughout the rest of the piece. While the research had used a narrow sample of 160 white women, the writer went on to refer to this group as “white women” sensationalised the issue and vilified all white women.

Cameroonian and Nigeria friends chimed in to remind us of our place as members of the powerful race. Their words, “To cry ‘not all’ speaks more about the privilege of being able to be individual. Whilst, black people and black women are generally seen as see one see all.”

For me the debate went a little further. For who was to decide if I was the oppressor or the oppressed? As a Turkish Muslim having spent almost half her lifetime in Britain I was perhaps too aware of the nuances of white in a world where West-centric experience of whiteness is considered the be all and end all of the white experience – which I do not own as my experience.

This week came the news that, in my opinion, laboured this point: The US Census Bureau plans to redefine ‘white’ to exclude people with Middle Eastern and North African origins – a stark reminder that white identities are too fluid to be boxed up as “white”. After 70-plus years of having to tick “white” or “other” on administrative documents, people originating from the Middle East and North Africa may soon have their own category. Surprised? Nope. Vindicated? Heck yes!

While to most Nigerians I may be the one shade that is “oyinbo” – something to be marvelled at or ridiculed – in a world where I choose to define myself I am far from the Anglo-American other, the heritage and experiences defining my identity a million worlds removed from theirs.

While in Nigeria a village woman who has never laid eyes on an oyinbo before can whip out her phone and put it up to my nose to take a picture, no qualms about it, a woman in England can say, “You are a bit tanned though; where are you originally from?” as what looks the standard shade of white to the Nigerian, is a few shades too dark for the Anglo-White.

“Whiteness isn’t a biological fact, rather it is a sort of members-only club that has rewritten its entry requirements over the years” writes Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian. Ultimately, what really defines whiteness is not melanin or nationality – it’s power.”

Those in power, even though some may be orange, are the ones to decide who gets a membership card. In the UK, the Polish who have now overtaken Indians to become the largest foreign born group in the UK, are identified more with their otherness as “White Other” while in Poland they are most certainly white. Much like in Turkey I am “wheat-skinned” Turk but here in the UK only “White Other” while in Nigeria I’m lily-white “oyinbo”.

I feel vindicated as perhaps this will openup new conversation of nuances of whiteness. I feel vindicated because perhaps now I won’t have to be held to the Anglo-American or European standards of whiteness which let’s admit have sunk to an all-time low. I feel vindicated because now perhaps there is room to understand the struggle is real for all of us without the carte blanche of the white elite club.