A Bit of Difference Read Online Free
Author: Sefi Atta
hesitated. She finishes her wine; so does Anne. A waiter approaches their table with dessert menus. Anne says she really shouldnât and opts for a black coffee. Deola has the passion fruit crème brûlée and asks for fresh raspberries on top.
Actually
A n incident on her flight back to London reminds her of something that happened a month ago during her first trip for LINK.
She was in Delhi to audit a charity for children. She stayed at the Crowne Plaza hotel and had enough time on her last day to ride in a rickshaw and visit Janpath Market with the program director, who later drove her to the airport. She had just joined the departure line when she saw an American ahead of her, who was wearingâof all garbsâa cream linen suit and a panama. The American grabbed an Indian man, who was edging his way to the line, by the shoulders and steered him away. âNo-oo,â he said, as if he were speaking to his son. The Indian man went to the back of the line without saying a
word. A moment later, a couple of Americans walked up. One was complaining, loud enough for everyone to hear, that he was going to miss his flight, and the man in the panama stepped back so they could get ahead of him.
What happens on her way to London is that she is again standing in line, this time to board her plane out of Atlanta, when a man cuts ahead of her. He is tanned with gray sideburns and is dressed in a navy jacket and striped shirtâexecutive-looking and clutching a John Grisham novel. She is three passengers from the flight attendant, a black American woman, who is checking boarding
passes. When it is her turn, the flight attendant looks at her, looks at the man, who is still not in line, and takes his boarding pass first.
She is tempted to snatch her stub from the flight attendant, but she doesnât. She eyes the man once she gets on the plane, but he is too busy pushing his hand luggage into an overhead compartment to notice. She brushes past him before he sits. She is loath to say an incident so trivial amounted to discriminationâit wasnât that straightforward, was it?âbut she thinks it anyway.
Only after the plane takes off and levels out is she able to reason that it might have been an innocent oversight. Then she remembers her conversation with Anne the previous night, which remained one-sided. Anne paid attention whenever she spoke and seemed eager to hear her opinions. Why couldnât she be more responsive to her? Was it that learned lack of trust? That resistance to being misinterpreted and diminished? Hardly, she decides. She was merely being expedient.
She sleeps most of the flight to London. It is Saturday morning when she arrives and the rain is a light spray. On the Gatwick Express she shuts her eyes while enjoying the motion and identifies the languages that people on cell phones are speaking. Thereâs French, Igbo and Portuguese. London is like the Tower of Babel these days. Still, she prefers it to the London she moved to in the eighties, despite the latent resentment she observes when people quicken their pace past a group of rowdy Pakistani teenagers or the Romanian mothers who beg.
She also detects some guilt, that aftertaste of the sumptuous meal that was empire. England is overrun with immigrants: African and Eastern European children they granted asylum are leading gangs, Islamic clerics are bragging about their rights and the English can barely open their mouths to talk.
Nigerians can never be that sorry for their transgressions, so sorry that they canât say to immigrants, âCarry your trouble and go.â Nigerians made beggars out of child refugees from Niger and impregnated their mothers. Nigerians kicked out Ghanaians when Ghanaians became too efficient, taking over jobs Nigerians couldnât do, and named a laundry bag after the mass exodus: the Ghana Must Go bag. Nigerians arenât even sorry about the civil war. They are still blaming that
Actually
A n incident on her flight back to London reminds her of something that happened a month ago during her first trip for LINK.
She was in Delhi to audit a charity for children. She stayed at the Crowne Plaza hotel and had enough time on her last day to ride in a rickshaw and visit Janpath Market with the program director, who later drove her to the airport. She had just joined the departure line when she saw an American ahead of her, who was wearingâof all garbsâa cream linen suit and a panama. The American grabbed an Indian man, who was edging his way to the line, by the shoulders and steered him away. âNo-oo,â he said, as if he were speaking to his son. The Indian man went to the back of the line without saying a
word. A moment later, a couple of Americans walked up. One was complaining, loud enough for everyone to hear, that he was going to miss his flight, and the man in the panama stepped back so they could get ahead of him.
What happens on her way to London is that she is again standing in line, this time to board her plane out of Atlanta, when a man cuts ahead of her. He is tanned with gray sideburns and is dressed in a navy jacket and striped shirtâexecutive-looking and clutching a John Grisham novel. She is three passengers from the flight attendant, a black American woman, who is checking boarding
passes. When it is her turn, the flight attendant looks at her, looks at the man, who is still not in line, and takes his boarding pass first.
She is tempted to snatch her stub from the flight attendant, but she doesnât. She eyes the man once she gets on the plane, but he is too busy pushing his hand luggage into an overhead compartment to notice. She brushes past him before he sits. She is loath to say an incident so trivial amounted to discriminationâit wasnât that straightforward, was it?âbut she thinks it anyway.
Only after the plane takes off and levels out is she able to reason that it might have been an innocent oversight. Then she remembers her conversation with Anne the previous night, which remained one-sided. Anne paid attention whenever she spoke and seemed eager to hear her opinions. Why couldnât she be more responsive to her? Was it that learned lack of trust? That resistance to being misinterpreted and diminished? Hardly, she decides. She was merely being expedient.
She sleeps most of the flight to London. It is Saturday morning when she arrives and the rain is a light spray. On the Gatwick Express she shuts her eyes while enjoying the motion and identifies the languages that people on cell phones are speaking. Thereâs French, Igbo and Portuguese. London is like the Tower of Babel these days. Still, she prefers it to the London she moved to in the eighties, despite the latent resentment she observes when people quicken their pace past a group of rowdy Pakistani teenagers or the Romanian mothers who beg.
She also detects some guilt, that aftertaste of the sumptuous meal that was empire. England is overrun with immigrants: African and Eastern European children they granted asylum are leading gangs, Islamic clerics are bragging about their rights and the English can barely open their mouths to talk.
Nigerians can never be that sorry for their transgressions, so sorry that they canât say to immigrants, âCarry your trouble and go.â Nigerians made beggars out of child refugees from Niger and impregnated their mothers. Nigerians kicked out Ghanaians when Ghanaians became too efficient, taking over jobs Nigerians couldnât do, and named a laundry bag after the mass exodus: the Ghana Must Go bag. Nigerians arenât even sorry about the civil war. They are still blaming that
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