A Time for Africa

There's been much discussion on the effect the pandemic will have on globalization long term, mainly that there will be much less of it in the future. Any long term discussion seems pointless now as things are changing so rapidly in the short term and while I see the reasoning behind the eulogies for globalization, they seem a bit premature. I am not an economist but I don't see a world post-COVID where people no longer want cheap stuff, which globalization affords. Yes, many nations are becoming insular; closing borders, restricting trade, investing in national supply chains, but others, like China, are looking outward, strengthening relations with poorer nations and providing them with money and material, particularly in Africa, which is poised to be hit hard by the pandemic (though the continent's median age of 19 will help soften the blow of a disease that disproportionally affects the elderly). It has certainly been effected by the spread of disease before. AIDS and Ebola are well-known modern plagues on the continent but it shouldn't be lost that African slave trade grew in numbers in part because Spanish conquistadors desired a new source of labor after smallpox decimated the native populations of the Americas. China's largess is not all altruism, she is counting on these countries remembering who helped them when this is over (and, just as importantly, who did not). Why Africa? In 30 years, 40% of humanity will live there and, after five centuries of being the brutalized patsy of the worst parts of globalization, the continent, because of emerging opportunities in population, technology and democracy, may well shape the next century on its own terms. 

Africa has a long history of giving to the benefit of others and to the detriment of itself (it also has a long history of being simplified as one thing as if "Africa" were monolithic and not 54 separate, diverse and very different nations, I'm furthering that history now for time purposes). Timbuktu was the world's library, the continent will soon bear the brunt of climate change while it is the world's smallest producer of greenhouse gases and there is no shortage of beneficial outcomes—from jazz to American independence—that were purchased at the terrible, unacceptable cost of the Western slave trade. 

I am acutely aware of this today because I'm going to have catfish, it being Friday and my Catholicism does not allow me to have other types of meat (maintaining Lent during a global pandemic had better get me into heaven, by the way). I know that last week we revealed that biologically there is no such thing as a fish but culturally there certainly is. Ichthys, the ancient Greek word for fish, from which we get words like ichthyology, the study of fish, and ichthyosis, a series of conditions that makes skin dry, itchy and scaly like a fish, was an acronym that early Christians used as a secret symbol. A building that had "ichthys" written on it was known to be a church because each letter in ichthys stood for the ancient Greek words for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Our Savior." The catfish I will have today will be similarly heavenly. It will be fried and it will be covered in Crystal's hot sauce and it will taste very, very good.

In 1900, Good Housekeeping magazine wrote "Small fish should swim twice. Once in water, and once in oil." There is nothing in all of Boethius more true than that. The fact that a 21st century American, of central European origin, should be so in love with fried catfish is a testament to globalization. My ancestors moved here for a better opportunity, many African Americans' ancestors were brought here involuntarily where there was but one, inhumane opportunity, an unimaginably different comparison. What they both found, though, was a Mississippi River teeming with catfish. For slaves in the 1600s, finding catfish would be a welcome reminder of home. There are nearly 3,000 species of catfish, they exist on every continent except Antartica but 500 years ago, there were only two places in the Western world where they were being caught and eaten—by Western Africans and by Native Americans. The original WASPy settlers of America had little use for them as fish-eating was associated with poverty and Roman Catholics but Native Americans and newly arrived slaves bonded, at least initially, over a shared love of catfish and swapped methods for catching them. 

West Africa's culinary similarity to the American South would be one of those things worth celebrating more if the fruit that coincidence bore wasn't born of such human cruelty. Staples of what is now thought of as soul food, like rice, okra, black-eyed peas, yams and millet (for grits), were all widely grown in places that are now Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso and other regions which supplied the lion's share of African slaves. Chickens and catfish were on African plates before they were on American ones, even "red drink," a sugary Kool-Aid concoction which has washed down plenty of ox tails in its day, has African roots. The much-maligned and misunderstood chitlins, or hog intestines, are British in origin, appropriated by slaves. 

Soul food restaurants were precarious exercises even before COVID threatened the entire food industry. Soul food is controversial, misunderstood as unhealthy and shunned for socio-economic purposes. Even among its target audience, catfish is divisive, thought of by some as "slave food" and banned by groups like the Nation of Islam for being bottom feeders. Minority owned restaurants are less likely to get loans to open brick-and-mortar shops, meaning they have fewer resources for insurance against failure like a good location, reliable staff and pleasing decor. Legendary soul food joints are often just that—legendary—because they rarely survive generation to generation. Practically all my favorite places in Memphis, where I spent time as a kid, are gone. A year ago, I knew of only two black-owned restaurants in Des Moines (both have since closed), one was on the north side in a building that used to be a warehouse (the restaurant also tried renting itself out as an event space) and the other was so far on the east side even east siders felt it was a journey. The actual restaurants would frequently close with no warning so the chef could do a more lucrative catering job, making their hours unreliable, poison for building an audience. This isn't unique to black-owned restaurants. A Mexican restaurant in Beaverdale where I grew up was clearly in a building that used to be a Long John Silver's (there were cutlasses on the doors for door handles) and one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the city, on the skywalk level of the Capital Square building, did very little to the decor of the Mexican restaurant that used to be there. I'm not being prescriptive, I think it's silly to shame people by saying "you should be supporting this business and not that business." We all have favorite places and know people in the industry who are suffering so spend your money where you want and where you can (and I cannot tell you how good the okra tasted in the gumbo I had at Bubba earlier this week). I'm simply saying that one of the more terrible aspects of the pandemic is how it inflames the already too-wide gap between the rich and the poor. We are seeing that on a local and governments are seeing it on a global level. Everyone is being pushed to the edge by this, those who started off further away are getting pushed closer and some who were initially closer will drop off. All of us, local consumers and national governments, need to figure out how we can best push back.