Every day as I walk down the street people stop, point and shout "Oyibo!" it means white man. Let me just say, I don’t mind people hailing me in the street. By the big grins on people’s faces I can tell it gives them a lot of pleasure to point out the obvious.
There was only once that I felt threatened. A boy stopped me as I passed through Wuse market and said “Oyibo! You want beef?” His arms went out, his palms turned upwards, adding force to the question. I quavered, stammering “No! I just want to be friends!” In the US and Britain “You want beef?” means “do you want an argument? Let’s fight.” Rarely does it actually mean, as it did here, “would you like to buy my slaughtered cow’s flesh.”
It has been a challenge to find an adequate response. I started with a slightly reserved “hello”, but for some reason it felt too repressed. I wanted to break out of the bumbling English character, restrained by centuries of queasy embarrassment and social conformity. Other greetings like “hi” and “alright?” –pronounced “orrite?”, the usual greeting between Londoners– left me feeling I wasn’t making an effort. Adopting the pidgin “well done” sounded like I was taking the piss.
Often, the greeting from street hawkers with ribbons of MTN cards, or heads full of pure water packets, is shouted at me as I pass in a car with the window down, getting some air. This leaves me barely enough time to raise a hand in acknowledgement as we drive past.
As William Boyd wrote in his novel A Good Man in Africa, protagonist Morgan Leafy is pleased just to be noticed by the children in the street who yell at his passing. A strange satisfaction from a sight so unusual it made a stranger call out. Still I'm not Morgan Leafy, although I heard the man he based the character on still works in the high commission in Lagos.
After a long period of consideration I decided to try shouting back “BLACK MAN!”
It was apt, short and to the point. I thought it was funny. I just hoped people would take it in the spirit it was meant.
When I told him of my plan, Emmanuel from the politics desk said: “Why don’t you say ‘NI***R!’?”
Now, reader, be assured I can hardly bring myself to write that word, let alone allow it to pass my lips as audible speech. It’s a word so laden with negativity and malice that my skin turned more pallid at the thought.
“Absolutely no way could I say that, Bello.”
He looked puzzled. “But Eminem says it all the time. He is white, why can he say it and you cannot?”
But Eminem wants to provoke aggression. Marshal Mathers the third likes nothing better than being attacked, set free to unleash his own vitriol.
Now why would I want to do that when just stating the obvious gives me a kick?