So, an interesting tidbit in my reading on Mauritania. A couple weeks ago, a princeton alum who is now the executive director of Africare commented to me that I "look very Mauritanian", after I told him about my upcoming trip.
Upon reading more about the country (information is suprisingly hard to find), I found that one of the largest population groups in Mauritania are the "Toucouleur", which literally translates into "multicolored (people)". Which explains why I apparently "look" Mauritanian. The rise of the Toucouleur population is, according to some sources, a direct result of the divisions between the majority "black"/ Wolof (also the majority group in Senegal, to give an idea of what we're talking about here) Mauritanian south and the majority "white"/Arab moor Mauritanian north and the abolishment of black slavery in Mauritania, which in turn caused a lot of intermarriage as a means of "marrying up". So the Toucouleur apparently make up much of what lies between these two regions as the two groups have mixed as a result of trade, industrialization and migration and, of course, our vicious friend colonialism. I'm really curious to see how the dynamic is on the ground, as there is apparently a rampant problem of racism between the two groups, but no one I have spoken to, and no site I have visited have addressed the issue of racism and the Toucouleur/mixed population, which I presumably will be considered a part of.
So this brings up another issue/question, since the same phenomenon has cropped up in South Africa and in other regions around the world, hence the terms mulatto, coloured (note the "u" to indicate its south african, lol), metis, mestizo, etc. It makes me wonder, specifically in the cases of Mauritania and South Africa, if a history of racism leads to a mentality that seeks to create specific groups of people rather than navigate individual differences. As in, it would be easier within a social mentality of strict classifications to lump all the "in between" people into their own respective racial/social/cultural/etc group, especially because the creating of a separate and disparate group inevitably skirts the issue of recognizing the interactive and socially significant relationships between "blacks" and "whites". So, if you have a group like the Toucouleurs, then wouldn't it be true that you would be re-drawing the color lines instead of understanding the fact that those lines are artificial and don't exist? Or, don't you just avoid the explanation of how racial and social mixing occurs naturally by instead separating out a specific (mixed) group as being an individual entity? I guess it could be worse, like the States, where apparently mixed people don't "exist" at all in the socially recognizeable sense of the term.
Yeah. So I am wary about the novelty and "coolness" of looking Mauritanian and how it will supposedly help me to blend in more. Feedback, anyone?
2 comments:
ok so semi- correction:
Apparently the phenomena of actual mixed people identifying as Toucouleur is a recent late independence era/post-independence thing. The "original" toucouleur, from the Takrur empire, are supposedly black, and it was the French and the french influence that led to the name "toucouleur", both as a peversion of the name, combined with the mixing that occurred as people were moved around under colonialism.
But so nowadays, it seems its common for brown Mauritanians to identify as toucouleur rather than as black Wolof or as white arab.
Yet another dimension of the issue, as well as an indication of colonial meddling. grr.
yeah, youre right, i do like this post. but wait, so whats the takrur empire and were those people lighter than the wolof people? its all so confusing, but i think youre totally right that having a category for not black/not white people doesnt necessarily suggest better racial politics. but also in SA the coloured population is more than mixed people cuz theyve been mixed/brown for generations (like the toucolour and mestizos in mexico), so people like us (like more recently mixed) also count as coloured but thats kind of seperate from the coloured community, you know?
there this book called "brown" that this reminded me of (someone brought it up in a class a few years ago but i havent read it yet). basically its about how America/the world is becoming brown, but i remember having issues with that idea because it suggests that this is a recent phenomenon and that people have only started mixing/becoming brown now (the same way people forget that globalization started back in the day with spice trade etc). another problem i have with this idea is that for mainstream US race dialogue "hispanics" represent the "blurring of the color lines", which i think is basically doing exactly what you mentioned, namely creating a new category for people who dont fit into the black/white dichotomy. which is why everyone thinks we're hispanic here, right? but simply acknowledging that people are slightly more complex than black/white by conceding the new category of "brown" doesn't address the ridiculousness of these categories in the first place or do anything to change the way we racialize people. i think this is also why i'm opposed to putting a "multiracial" box on the census or government forms because it takes all the complexity of having multiple backgrounds/identities and puts it also into one single box.
hm...another thing is that i feel like it's easier to understand/accept these kinds of things in places with obvious colonial backgrounds. like in SA you can understand the coloured population as the product of dutch colonialism and slavery, in mexico/latin america as the product of spanish/portuguese styles of colonization, or in places with military occupations that would result in soliders making babies with the locals. but i think what's so difficult about situations that arent explained by that scenario (the colonialists/soliders just HAD to have sex with the local women because their own women weren't around) is that it means that maybe people just like each other, or maybe "race" doesnt really even matter. do you see what i mean?
anyway yeah, im excited to hear how the situation in mauritania feels on the ground.
:)
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