Black People<\/p>\n
By Sori Siregar<\/p>\n
With their disheveled colors of brown and reddish yellow, the
\nfallen leaves along Suitland Parkway heralded the coming of fall.
\nSooner or later, trees in the woods fencing a hidden skyline
\nwould have their leaves fall one by one, and apartments dotting
\nthe street would come in to clear view.<\/p>\n
Iftikar stopped his car and took photos of leaves glinting in
\nthe sun. After aiming the lens at different angles, he looked
\naround him, transfixed. He came from Indonesia, a country that
\ndoes not know four seasons, and he had never seen such beauty
\nbefore.<\/p>\n
Suitland is about 10 kilometers from Washington, D.C. Iftikar
\nhas lived in Suitland for three months now. He had come from a
\nworld away with his wife and two children. Fila, the oldest of
\nthe two, is studying at a kindergarten not far from their
\napartment building, while Vori, the two-year-old, stayed with her
\nmother in the apartment.<\/p>\n
Accepting a good job opportunity so far away from his country
\nwas challenging for Iftikar. He had to prove that people from his
\ncountry were as good at work as those from other lands. It was
\nthe sole reason he signed the five-year contract with the
\nbroadcasting company here.<\/p>\n
While Iftikar stood lost looking at the beautiful colors of
\nthe season, a little black boy approached him and asked, \"Are you
\nlost?\"<\/p>\n
Iftikar turned his head towards the sound of the voice, and
\nsaw a pair of clear, sincere eyes offering help. Iftikar smiled
\nand patted the boy's head.<\/p>\n
\"No. I'm just taking pictures. I find these colors very
\nbeautiful.\"<\/p>\n
The boy looked at Iftikar, perplexed. He looked around him,
\nbut did not find anything out of the ordinary. The sights that
\nhad enamored Iftikar did not seem new to the boy, who had seen
\ncolors of fall every year.<\/p>\n
Iftikar squeezed the boy's shoulder and said goodbye. The boy
\nlooked on confused as Iftikar sat in his car and drove off.<\/p>\n
That same morning when Iftikar was cleaning the car, a young
\nblack woman, returning from shopping errands, came up to him and
\nstood right by his side.<\/p>\n
\"Were you the one who called the police last night?\"<\/p>\n
Iftikar did not know what to make of the strange question, and
\njust shook his head foolishly. The woman, carrying her brown
\npaper bag, chuckled.<\/p>\n
\"Next time just knock on my door and tell me to lower down the
\nmusic if it's too loud. It's really no bother. I ask the other
\nneighbors to do the same. All right?\"<\/p>\n
Then the young lady walked off. Iftikar was confused, riddled
\nwith questions in his mind while still working on the car.<\/p>\n
He told his wife about the incident and she laughed.<\/p>\n
\"Clotel told the police. She knew I wasn't feeling well and
\nwas resting. But our neighbor was playing rock music so loud
\nClotel could hear it all the way in her apartment and she was
\njust lazy to go down and tell her. So she called the police,\" she
\nsaid with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\"I actually saw the police knocking on the door and peering
\ninto the viewer hole. Next thing you know, Clotel calls me up and
\nwe both are laughing our heads off at the whole episode.\"<\/p>\n
Iftikar nodded his head slowly, understanding for the first
\ntime. Clotel was the neighbor living upstairs who often baby-sat
\nthe two kids when Iftikar and his wife had functions to attend.
\nClotel, like most of his neighbors, was black.<\/p>\n
Still nodding away, Iftikar then listened to what his wife had
\nto say.<\/p>\n
\"See, I know Emma was wrong to be suspicious. From the
\nbeginning I knew, wherever we would be, we would find our own
\npeople, our friends, peers, whatever you call them. The important
\nthing is that we get along. I mean, look at the black people
\naround us. They are so good to us. They have accepted us quite
\nwell. We have never been considered immigrants, trying to take
\naway their jobs away from them.\"<\/p>\n
She continued: \"Emma advised us before that we should stay in
\nan apartment where lots of Vietnamese live in the same building.
\nShe said that since we were Asians we would get along with them
\nbetter. Black people were deceitful, she said. But I never
\nbelieved her.<\/p>\n
\"On the contrary, if we had lived with the Vietnamese as our
\nneighbors, we would have been taken as immigrants.\"<\/p>\n
\"It's the same thing,\" Iftikar cut in. \"Here or there, it's
\nthe same thing. If we had rented an apartment there, we would
\nhave adjusted as well, made friends, peers or whatever you call
\nthem, or maybe found something that makes you feel safe instead
\nof lonely.\"<\/p>\n
The phone rang, and Iftikar picked it up. It was Powell,
\ntelling him that his baby was delivered safely without a
\ncaesarean section.<\/p>\n
Iftikar looked at his wife as he put down the phone.<\/p>\n
\"I am the first person he told about his newborn. And I am his
\nnewest subordinate. That is one black man who truly cares about
\nme, even as his subordinate,\" Iftikar said proudly.<\/p>\n
During winter, not a single leaf was seen on the trees. There
\nwere just patches of grass in the woods that usually hid Suitland
\nParkway from sight.<\/p>\n
Four apartment buildings were clearly visible on the other
\nside of the road despite the heavy traffic.<\/p>\n
Every time Iftikar crossed that road, he would see children
\nbundled up against the cold, running around the grounds near the
\napartment buildings.<\/p>\n
Looking at the people quietly standing at the other side, one
\nrealized they led very simple lives, and that most of them were
\npoor.<\/p>\n
One could also see several cardboard boxes lying strewn on the
\nterraces of those apartments. There were bicycles and old
\nmattresses as well. The terraces looked like attics, where people
\nkept their necessities. The conditions and the neighborhood
\nitself were distinctly black.<\/p>\n
\"If we lived in those apartments, we probably would save a lot
\nmore and I could reach the office faster,\" Iftikar told his wife
\none evening while driving through the area.<\/p>\n
His wife turned her head to look at him. She knew her husband
\nwas joking, so she answered in the same manner.<\/p>\n
\"Yep, and we would probably be the richest folks to live
\nthere, too.\"<\/p>\n
Both laughed. Both their children were sound asleep on the
\nbackseat.<\/p>\n
\"Seeing the conditions of these black people in these kinds of
\napartments, I can understand why they do not like immigrants like
\nus, something that Emma used to say, too,\" Iftikar said. \"They
\nmust feel that immigrants are working in the jobs they should
\nhave. And so, they end up being jobless.\"<\/p>\n
\"That is not the problem,\" said his wife.<\/p>\n
\"They feel the pinch of the minimum wage they earn. After
\nworking so hard, they obviously expect more but, instead, they
\nget minimum wage. So they prefer to be jobless. They get their
\nfood stamps and support from the government, which is not much
\ndifferent from the wages they got when they worked. They are
\nquite rational,\" she laughed.<\/p>\n
Iftikar was quiet. He knew that there was truth in her words,
\nbut what she said applied only to a minority. There were so many
\nblack people who were successful and occupied important positions
\nin both government and private companies in the country.<\/p>\n
The main determinants of a good life were education and
\nability. Connections and relations did not play any role
\nwhatsoever in competing for jobs in the field. Iftikar believed
\nthis, and he felt that when one learned to develop and grow with
\na job, opportunities would always be open.<\/p>\n
He believed this because he was one of those people. He was
\nrecruited for his current position in the U.S. as his job back
\nhome could be given to an expatriate as well. He passed his
\nscreening and selection with marks far better than the other
\ncandidates selected from the U.S. It was the sole reason he was
\npicked to work here.<\/p>\n
\"I find you have too great a sympathy for the blacks,\" his
\nwife said.<\/p>\n
\"I have always been sympathetic towards people who are not as
\nlucky as we are, who are trampled upon, discriminated and not
\nallowed to voice their opinions,\" he replied. \"People who are
\nliving on the streets and who are abandoned.<\/p>\n
\"There are so many in our country who are fated to live lives
\nsimilar to those people living in these apartments.\"<\/p>\n
\"I know what's on your mind,\" Iftikar's wife said when she saw
\nher husband reading an article in their Jakarta home.<\/p>\n
It was about a huge meeting attended by half a million black
\npeople at the open field called the Mall in Washington. The
\nmeeting was conducted by the controversial Louis Farrakhan.<\/p>\n
He was a man known for screaming out his frustrations over
\ndiscrimination against blacks. He often said that the blood of
\nthe black people was being sucked dry by Jews, Arabs, Koreans,
\nVietnamese and other races.<\/p>\n
But this meeting seemed different.<\/p>\n
Farrakhan was instead advising, speaking of a reconciliation
\nand the building of brotherhood among all races.<\/p>\n
The man always confused Iftikar, who found his attitude and
\nopinions as changeable as the weather.<\/p>\n
\"If I were still there, I would have been there at that
\nfield,\" he said as he put down the newspaper.<\/p>\n
His wife looked at him with seasoned understanding. She knew
\nhe would start playing old records, which would make him
\nnostalgic about the U.S., and the people who had left such a deep
\nimpression on him. Particularly the black people, the people he
\ncared most about.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/black-people-1447899208",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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