It’s definitely something I was looking out for. And I think even if I wasn’t, you know, it would have maybe crept in. But I was definitely interested in that because it’s most Black Africans’ experience of America. You know, stepping away from home and coming here. But I was trying to figure out: what is the new thing that [my] film could add to the conversation? Because there are lots of films that address American racism and trace its history and its present. And so it didn’t seem adequate to just show racism. It’s one of the things that makes America difficult and unpleasant and inconvenient and maybe dangerous. And so it’s one of the palpable forces that may be pushing people back [to Africa]. So the way I was thinking about structuring the film was in terms of the arc of one’s relationship with home and what everyone’s mission is, or the mission of youthful idealism.
Initially, all the participants were on a mission to get the skills [at MIT] and then go back home. But racism is rearing its head. In the first couple of years, it’s an inconvenient thing that just needs to be tolerated. [You tell yourself that] you’re just here for four years and it’s a nuisance, right? “These [racist Americans] are ridiculous. You know, I’m fully capable. You’re acting like I scammed my way into this institution. You’re the fool. I just need to ignore you for four years, and then I’m out.” But then in the halfway point of the film, probably around Fidelis’s trip [back home] to Zimbabwe, I think the [students] come to the realization that their time in the US might have to be longer than four years. “Either we’re going to take jobs on or we’re going to study more or we’re going to have to actually get more skills or real-world expertise, or make connections and network, and take on American jobs before we go back home. Or we make lives here [in the United States].” And so then racism is not just an inconvenience, but it is something you have to wrestle with [on a more permanent basis], and you have to make a decision about how you’re going to deal with it.
And I think Sante is the one who most explicitly takes that on. She’s the one marching in the streets [in the film]. So the students [actively] contributed to the fight against racism in America.
After college, when I was working, one of my closest friends was African-American, and we would have really intimate conversations about his experiences as a Black man in America. [At first] I could not understand what he meant [when he said that] he would walk in a room and instantly start counting how many Black people [were in the room]. I, as an African, did not have that burden [in Africa]. But in the film, the journey [of confronting racism in the United States] happened much faster [for the students, who were determined] not to be bystanders [but to] join the fight against [racism]. So I felt that that was the role of the film, to show how that transformation [into active antiracist] happens. It’s about making a decision about what you’re going to do. Personally, it was about linking the roots of American racism—white supremacy and colonialism—[to what is happening today], including the homophobia that I’m trying to find safety from, and that I had to navigate very uncomfortably as a queer kid in Ghana.
So those things [racism and homophobia] have common roots. And so I wanted to tie them together, especially because I’m a Black gay man in America—and a Black gay African also.
The film is a study of how youthful idealism gets tested by things going on in the world. By the specifics of the individual backgrounds that people come from, and then by their desires for their adult lives. So let’s track the times that they’re living in and what’s going on and how that’s shaping and applying pressure on that youthful idealism.
What I wanted to talk about [in the film] is really how American society has a specific gaze on Black people that is one of suspicion. And no matter how strong you are as a person, that does affect you. It makes the self-doubt, the insecurity that Black people feel much worse. [The film also addresses] suspicion towards women in engineering spaces. [One] sequence focuses on Sante specifically because she’s the one woman among the participants that we followed closely, and then she’s Black. So the gaze of suspicion is twofold—it’s doubling. I think that Sante has a very specific constitution as a person. From the get-go, she was never afraid to speak her mind or to ask questions that others might deem uncomfortable, and to really speak out about things that she thought just didn’t make sense. She was very brave about how she carried herself in general. And that’s a quality I learned.
When we traveled home with Sante, I realized through the stories that her family told that she has always been this strong-willed person who has a very strong sense of self and clarity in terms of how she’s gone about changing educational opportunities [for women] in Tanzania. Her dad actually told the story of when she was a kid [and the family considered] changing their last name to honor a male ancestor in his village. And [Sante’s] brothers went along with it. But she refused to change her name—Nyambo—and her dad talked about how, when he thought about it, that was actually really appropriate because the name Nyambo was the name of a female ancestor who was also very strong-willed and was very well-known in that community.
Source: africasacountry.com
