Opiyo Oloya
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA

Three weeks ago, as I drove 1600 kilometres from Toronto to Minneapolis to attend the Uganda North America Association (UNAA) Convention, the hard-driving rhythm of the song “Who is this America?” by the New York-based collective Antibalas kept me company.

The music is very much Afrobeat style of the late Fela Kuti, the Nigerian musician-activist who died in 1997. And just like their hero, Antibalas is relentless in posing tough social justice questions, in this case about the most powerful nation on earth today.

Who is this America dem speak of today, it asks in pidgin English. Driving along the beautifully paved highways of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and finally Minnesota, surrounded by symbols of prosperity such as big houses, expensive automobiles, well manicured neighbourhoods, tall shiny highrises and so on, one would be tempted to say America is all gold.

The best part of the drive had to be Wisconsin. Also known as the Cheese State because of its large production of cheese, it is a series of greeneries that stretch for miles. The beautiful vista, rolling hills and green valleys dotted with black and white cows lazing in the sun, is something to behold. In some instances, acre upon acres of green cornfield covered the horizon.

The richness of the land is surpassed only by its peacefulness and tranquility. Here, far away from the foggy rumble of the city, pristine rural America which is mostly white, work the land using modern technology to get maximum yield per acre. This is one of the breadbaskets of America which feeds big cities like Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee.

Everywhere you look along the highway, there are signs inviting you to yet another cheese house, and in some cases to wine and cheese tasting. I wondered what happens to those who have had too much cheese to eat and wine to drink, whether they still insist on driving along the highway.

Three days later while returning to Toronto, during an overnight stopover in Chicago, I got to walk the Magnificent Mile with its brand-name boutiques and carefully coiffed cafes and perfumed restaurants. Opulence oozed out from every crack in the street.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina did not leave them alone to dream the American dream. It wreaked much havoc along the coastal areas of Mississippi and Louisiana that forced to the surface the poor and the stench of their poverty.

And what an ugly sight that was for America the Beautiful. Laid bare for all to see was the irony of this most powerful nation on earth called America.

Though rich and powerful, it was unable to take care of its own! Apparently, most of those folks (as George Bush refers to the victims of the flood) were poor blacks who did not have the wherewithal to get out of danger’s way, and so they stayed put, praying and hoping that the storm would blow away and leave them to continue to wallow in their destitute lives.

For the most part, they are the unseen faces of America, hidden in the nooks and crannies of urban highrises where they blend nicely with the black asphalt until they are no longer visible to the casual observer.

A wrong turn on the way to my hotel took me to Chicago’s dreaded south side with its ugly dirty brick buildings that many poor black call home. Here, in the heartland of America, is the real fourth world, complete with garbage strewn alleyways, rotting buildings, and God knows what else. Here in the drug-laden, bullet-riddled, highly congested apartment blocks, according to some statistics, as many as 95% live on one form of social assistance or another.

They live and die here! True, hard work (and some good luck) propelled some black folks to middle and upper-middle stratosphere of good society, where their skin is not so menacingly black. Entertainment and sports personalities like Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy, Michael Jordan, Tiger Wood, and less well known but rich black entrepreneurs are living the American dream. In 2003 Winfrey became the first billionaire black woman listed by Forbes Magazine.

She, along with the few selected brethrens, have money, clout and influence and can fly away in private jets to beautiful places at a mere whim.

For the majority of blacks, however, poverty beckons from the cradle to the grave.

It is like that in the US with many living day by day, without the safety nets such as those available to citizens in Europe, Japan and Canada. Social security and universal healthcare which Canadians take for granted are dreams away from a huge sector of America, most of them urban poor blacks.

According to the US Census Bureau, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America including 12.9 million children. The average annual income cut-off point for a family of four is $16,660. Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico are the three states with the highest poverty rate at 18%, and as it happens, they also have the highest population of blacks and Latinos.

According to the Bread for the World Institute, 3.5 percent of U.S. households with as many as 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, experience hunger, some frequently missing meals or eating too little, even going without food for a whole day!

Who is this America? The answer is staring right at you buddy.

Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca