Racism in Kenya

I have to admit I have lived a pretty sheltered life, so sheltered that it was in the recent past I came across a highway robber with a pistol but then again maybe it’s because before I leave my house I ask God to uncross my paths with anyone evil.

Now I have experienced racism twice. Once in high school when we took the family holiday at one of the block hotels in Naivasha. So the only blacks in the hotel were the ones who worked there. Including the manager’s family who would join us for meals. It’s so many years back but I still remember the piercing unwelcome look the whites were giving us. They would actually stare at us like we were some monstrosities. I guess it was hard for them to understand how a black family could afford a trip that they probably really saved up for a year.

Then another time, we were on a double date with friends and we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, then we decided that the night was still young, we can go hang out at another restaurant and sip on something so we went to a certain hotel at Post Bank building. It was full of cuties, Indians, there was only one empty table right at the middle, so in we went amid the glaring stares of the wahindi. We sat and waited and waited and waited. Being ignored by the black staff. Eventually they came and when we ordered they said they don’t sell drinks with out a meal so since we had eaten we just left.

I have been on holiday in so many places locally which are full of white folk. For the most part they are not racist but I know that for example the fishing holiday all inclusive package in places like Watamu and Rusinga Island never have blacks, maybe blacks don’t like fishing. I don’t know.

Waiters can be racists too but not if you try to be friendly to them, like ask them to recommend a dish to you, talk to them in Swahili. Of course black folk don’t tip as much as whites but then to a white person who has traveled all the way to the Mara or the Lamu Archipelego, it’s a very big deal. To a Kenyan it’s no biggy especially if you go on holiday once or twice a year so you don’t see the sense in tipping because like si umezoea. If you started holidaying from when you were a child and it’s kind of the same circuit unakuja mwenyeji. So how does a mwenyeji tip another mwenyeji. If I go to a restaurant and the service is super, I always tip. I understand the logic of tips. That if I give you 20 Bob and 9 more people give you the 20 Bob that’s an Unga for you . I tip parking people. I tip security for carrying my heavy stuff. If I have no cash I give them food because my house is always full of food. Cooked food in the fridge, as in you can never come to my house and kosa a ready made meal that needs warming. So a times I give security food. Even at work I carry snacks for them when we have left overs from meetings. Where I am from, women are taught to be generous. So obligated am I that I one time gave an egg I’d shopped for to a parking kid because I had no coins and I felt bad leaving him with out something. So it’s not like I am a mean person but I can’t tip like a jungu. That’s why waiters prefer serving jungus. Lots of tips.

So I am really trying to rack my brain for places where I feel discrimination. Some places in Nairobi like Zen Garden have way too many customers. So it can be crazy getting service especially if you are not a regular. There’s a country club in Limuru which is also abit racist, the black staff give white members preferential treatment, I don’t know if their membership fees are higher. I never got to ask the person who took me there. Lord Erol Club also has such attitude from their wait staff but their food is worth the discrimination LOL. Still the key with all wait staff in about any establishment is to build rapport to get the best service.

I remember one place I took a family of some people who helped me settle into a new town, to dinner, when I was leaving the town. It was a very exclusive place, it had a lady who was serenading us, Ella Fitzgerald style, it was so magical , in fact the only people dining were us, 4 adults and two kids on our table and a bunch of young white men looked Mediterranean. So when the waiter brought the hors d’oeuvres, I sent him with my compliments to the chef, who then offered us two dishes at the price of one and our food came before the jungus. Who were busy knocking back shots so I am sure they did not notice we came after them but were served first.

The thing is that as a Kenyan you are actually spoilt for choice, you can avoid racist places but how about if you are a minority and you can’t avoid it. It sucks big time and can actually ruin your holiday, your dinner, everything especially because you are in your own country. I hear Diani is terrible at this.

Anyway, there’s no way we can rid the world of discrimination, its just part of life. I know this as a woman and I know this as a part of the African race. What has helped me is the understanding that people can only give you what they’ve got. If hate and contempt is what they have that’s all they can give you. The other thing is understanding that if someone gives you something and you don’t take it, it remains with them. Just steer clear of them because if they bleed on you it’ll will be nothing but toxicity. People have alot of issues in their lives bothering them. You can’t take it personal if they lash out at you because it’s a sign that they have a problem that you don’t. Still we cant stand by and watch if it escalates to death and injury. That one is unacceptable. We must stand in solidarity against all injustice in the world. I remember how devastating it was to hear of the Indian medical student who was gang raped in a bus in Delhi while from a movie. It still sends shivers down my spine that something like this can happen. We must stand against injustice. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. RIP to all victims of race based, tribal based, gender based violence.

Getting better, still weak though.

Always amazes me when you tip a Kenyan waiter and they stare at you on the face like wtf is this.

LOL. Nowadays I buy them a drink or snack. It’s cheaper than tipping.

LOL. The guy I gave an egg was really thrilled. I think noone has ever given him a raw egg b4.

Firstly, this is an incredibly erudite and well-written post; you capture a lot of complexity succinctly.

I have a few comments, some from my own experience, and some from my analysis of my experiences.

  • I refuse to accept racism in this country. It is my country, it is a black country, I will not have an Indian or a White make me feel uncomfortable in my own country I own it and turn the tables on them. I remember an incident two years ago where I was at Travellers Beach Hotel and this fat German started filming myself and my ten year old niece lying by the pool (obviously shocked that blacks had shown up). I got progressively annoyed until I told him clearly, “this is a black country, don’t look so shocked to see blacks by the pool. We own the place”. He went the shitty pink they do when they are flustered and started back-tracking. I feel more people should do that.

  • Maybe it’s just me but I hold all these foreigners to a different standard. I have lived and worked in the US and the UK so I know the white man coming and throwing his money around is the same white man who is eating sandwiches to save to come, 99% of the people in these resorts are lower-to-middle class whites who, while making more money than us, are financially relatively in the same position (no savings, having to budget etc). So I treat them as such. No favours, no special treatment, polite but firm, and a big stick up their “arse” if they behave out of line. Same with the Indians, the same wahindi who are up their own anus here are called “pakis” in the UK and looked down on. Don’t feel intimidated.

  • A truly educated, rich (in spirit and in material wealth) has no need to be racist. He is secure in him/herself. It’s aways the tiny-dick breadline fucks who seem to want to show their superiority because they smell of sour milk.

I have to say, it took me time to come to this conclusion. We’re still fed the old bullshit from the empire about how white is better and white is right. It’s only when you live with them you notice this is an animal race. They don’t have morals, they don’t have spiritually, they just have material things. And even then, they are not happy.

We are immensely richer, and it pains me we continue to try and ape them.

It could be argued I’m being racist. So be it.

I agree completely. I have lived in resort towns long enough to see how debased white people can be. I always had a bad impression of the ones who come to Kenya and always advised my friends who wanted to marry white to not do it with the local ones because they were the worst possible. I have friends and relatives married to good white men. However I myself have lost respect for the white race because of the kind of things I have seen them doing at the Coast.

These guys have turned Kenya into one big brothel where they come to produce child porn and sell it to their fellow pedophiles. It’s an open secret that they rent Vilas for a month or two and get kids as young as 8 years old to film and sell in their own country at a premium bcz it’s illegal in their country.

Through out their time here, all they do is drink, party, do hard drugs like heroin which you can get for as little as 100 Bob anywhere. In resort towns, you get propositioned for drugs by tuktuk drivers and beach boys. It’s not the clandestine business it is in Nairobi, some clubs are openly known for being drug markets. They pay their dues to police to turn a blind eye. These are people in their 60s, so this is all that is left of their lives. Debauchery. I can’t think of a more pathetic way to spend your sunset years than what I have seen with these old white retirees at the Coast. If you saw the case where a German geezer was stabbed to death at some cheap cottage in the company of a sex worker. The man owns a decent garden pub but can’t even pay for a decent hotel for his escort. I come from a culture where elders are revered so seeing a man old enough to be my father sky high on hard drugs, hunched over with a skinny child like local girl by his side makes me want to throw up. It’s a pathetic end to a wasted life of hedonism.

They get our local girls hooked on drugs by boyfriending them then compelling the girls to become drug mules, sex slaves and drug peddlers to support their drug habits. The white man is exceedingly cunning and ruthless. I’ve never seen such unconscionable people in my life. I pity the Kenyan women married to local white men. They are terrible people. My friends who were dating them tried to encourage me to mingle with them and I told them that with what I had known I can never look at any white person in Kenya the same way again.

Even their women are so animalistic and predatory. I remember one family that had come together on holiday and each of them was hooking up with local beach boys and girls. The husband,wife their teenage kids. I don’t know what kind of morals these people have.

I don’t know what Africans envy in white people. They have completely ruined the Coastal children and communities. With their sex tourism. They even have chat rooms and forums for punters and mongering they call it to advice each other where to get Kenyan children CHEAP. Some of these things can make you hate jungus and become extremely racist. They have no respect for our people, our children and our culture. They go to remote areas with extreme poverty and buy our children to make kiddy porn which they sell and make a killing. It’s now a lucrative business of exploiting children of poor coastal tribes. It’s just damn sickening. It gave me alot of sleepless nights when I first realized what was happening. I was so angry. The white man as Malcolm X used to say the white man IS the devil. I have seen it with my own eyes. A geezer taking two underage kids to his room. I had to threaten the hotel owner an Italian woman that I will call the police to have those children removed from the man’s room. Those people are rotten to the core.Wacha tuu.

Do you travel out of the country?

“If someone gives you something and you don’t take it, it remains with them” - TrumanCapote on race based hate - May 2020

TrumanCapote , I need to use you. You write so well! You are enthusiastic and consistent. I write books in many fields. They are on Amazon. Yes. I do best research and sell theory to lazy Professors. I like you. Inbox me!

Once in a blue moon.

It was in Ethiopia where they carried our luggage for us and left the mzungus to carry theirs. We were always ushered in first.
It made such an impression that’s hard to forget.

Though the lighter habeshas despise black Ethiopians.

John Ineo speaks 27 languages! You have been chosen.Yes, check your M-Pesa for $ 100 goodwill once you confirm!

Very rightly stated.
Life is meant to be lived satisfactorily and many mistake by satisfactorily it means material wealth.
That is also the problem that is over there, despite many sociologists and researchers highlighting the dangers of unfettered laissesz-faire capitalism in a society’s moral fabric.

DO NOT USE CONDOMS!

My cousin went for a wedding there, she’s been around the world but she couldn’t stop talking about Ethiopia. The ancient churches and the raw meat served at the wedding . It makes quite an impression on most people. Jamaicans feel as we Christians do on pilgrimage to Israel. I asked an Eritrean roomier I had about how it is that Jamaicans came to worship His Majesty Haile Selassie. She told me that Jamaica had had a 3 year drought, not a drop and Haile Selassie traveled to Jamaica and as soon as his feet touched the ground the rain fell tremendously. I expected a more elaborate story but I’ve never found one. Rain made him God to Jamaicans. Listen to how Queen I Africa gushes about Haile Selassie.

Let me teach YOU subhumans! You gain ZERO via inference! YOU gain 100% by living it(your life)! Posting other peoples pictures adds up to 23% of your desired happiness in a non additive value! I guess you are clueless about that sentence!

This is why I love Ethiopians. hakuna kulamba mkundu ya shetani nyeupe! Ethiopia hoye! wasomala hoye!

Are you alright! Wacha bhangi na pombe