Day 7

Forgive my need to voice my dissatisfaction with the hospitality of the people of Madrid. However, I, as well as another African American woman here in Madrid (Simone), have experience questionable behavior from the people here, particularly the men. Their reaction to Simone and I, while merely walking down the street or having lunch at a cafe, has been a bit offensive and borderline obscene.

Some specific encounters on yesterday, left me with a particularly distasteful view of Europeans. And I feel the need to share with you all, in order to see if this has rang true in other's experiences.



On Thursday night, while I was out in Madrid with Simone, we stumbled upon a poster that was not only shocking, but led me to ask many questions. The poster was an advertisement for a party at a night club, called the Big Boom. And featured two women, one black and one spanish. The Black woman was scantily dressed in a brazillian thong swimsuit, that could barely contain her volumptuous curves, which gave full access to her cleavage, torso, behind and thighs, while the Spanish woman wore a tank top and pants, with her shirt pulled up to her ribcage, merely showing her torso.
I could not help but be suspicious....paranoid, if you will. I felt that the exploitation and msyoginistic, overt over-sexualization of the black woman was intentional.

I thought of American history, and recalled the image of "Carmen" the harlot and Josephine Baker doing her banana dance, and thinking that there is an intentional plot to create a heightened and overtly sexualized image of the black "Jezebel", contrasted by the mostly pure European "Madonna".

In that brief moment, I had looked at a poster, and read into it thousands of years of history, and maybe I was wrong to do so. But my later experiences this week has confirmed and augmented my sense of awareness of this issue. In Toledo, on Saturday with Simone, a man made animal like noises at us when we walked into his restaurant, that sounded primal at best. We immediately, left, without saying a word, because we were both disgusted by such sexually agressive behavior.

Later, while walking the streets we were subjected to catcalls, and sexual grunts. Needless to say, we felt uncomfortable. Yet, this discomfort was further fueled by the fact that we didn't see this response or behavior directed at any other women (we were the only black women there).

While many of the men would call out to us in husky voices "GUAPA GUAAAAPA" which means pretty...the fact is that their demeanor said something very different.

This behavior, while seemingly notably child-like actually mirrors the behavior of Madridian children, whom we have encountered in the cafeteria at the dorm (they attend a day camp at the university. Children as young as four, passed by Simone and I and began to say "Negra, Negra" and not in a tone of adoration!

However for me, the icing on the cake occurred when I descended the stairs of the subway-metro in a hurry to catch our train, only to be greeted by a man (sitting inside a train on the opposite track) who upon seeing me jumped up and started pointing at me, and tapping the people next to him to turn around and look at me. Now, I must admit the guy was deaf, because he used sign language to communicate, and thus could have simply not been able to say "look at her". But, he made a face and pointed continuously as if he were watching an elephant ride a tricycle.

I was stunned speechless. I simply could not accept a person seeing me and acting as if they saw a monkey dancing to Michael Jackson for the first time. But what is the proper response? Regardless of whether a person is deaf, dumb or stupid, they need to learn how to act like a human being when they see a human being of another color or ethnicity, REGARDLESS of whether they have never seen a black person before. In this respect, Spaniards are just as socially defunct as the Chinese.

I'm a bit sore regarding these incidents and would appreciate feedback. Please feel free to comment.

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P.S. I did not let this ruin my night, Simone and I went into the city to watch Spain's Futbol team win the EuroCup. We had a great night. We met a guy, from Hungary, who repeatedly told us how beautiful we were, and by the end of the night, began to tell me that he loved me. Throughout the night he asked us over and over to take our pictures for us. I thanked him for his gentlemanliness. It was as refreshing to my heart as a cool drink.... Speaking of cool drink... :-)

Upon speaking to our waitress that night (a woman of Black and spanish descent), she informed us that when men yell after us "GUAPPPPAAAAAAAAA" they are say that we are pretty. She stated that they really intend to pay homage to our beauty, but are simply too stupid to do so properly.