Goats in WHITE Masks: Privileging Whiteness as Our Progress

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“Local timber contractors say they have been thrown out of business because prime lands in forest reserves have been allocated to expatriate loggers” (MyJoyOnLine.com, March 5, 2010).

In Ghana
Leaders, officials, government, elders
Those who should lead us
Have sold their conscience, integrity
To greed
To neocolonialism, dependency
To anyone in kaleidoscopic white skin
To even goats in white masks

In Ghana
Our educational system is about whiteness
Christianity is about pure whiteness
Our radio stations are about whiteness
Our TV stations are about whiteness
Our names are about whiteness
So we privilege
Worship, revere, deify
Anyone with “white” skin tone
Lebanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian
Even goats in white masks
Goats in white masks are privileged

In Ghana
Our trees are harvested by foreigners
Gold, diamond, bauxite, water, fish
All in the crafting hands of foreigners
Of foreigners
Foreigners who abuse us
Foreigners who disrespect us
Oh! OBURONI
The divine intervention agency
Our gods, saviors
OBURONI, the white man
Lebanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian
All exploit us
Marginalize us even in Ghana
In our own land
In our homes
In the land of our birth
In the land of our ancestors
We have become outsiders
Strangers, tenants, share-croppers
Slaves, cheap laborers
Exploited, abused and used
Debt-bondage
Pawning our birthright

In Ghana
Ghanaians
Held hostage by selfish leaders
Leaders, chiefs who ennoble greed
Officials in the pay of foreigners
Mercenary educated elites
Held hostage
To fascination with white skin
To gifts, bribery, graft
To bottles of Schnapps
To crates of beer
To dollars, pounds, Euro, Yuan
Foreigners have it all
Goats in white masks have it all
Tearing our forests and gold
Torn from Ghana’s womb

In Ghana
We worship OBURONI
We venerate Oburoni things
And so it has come to pass
We import chicken legs, wings
We import tomatoes, onions, peppers
The craze is WHITE onion, pepper
We import rice
Perfumed rice is the BURONI one
Local TUO SAFI is no more
FRIED PERFUMED RICE is here
Sweet lavender carcinogens
Cancerous rice in Ghana’s womb

In Ghana
When we need local school uniforms
Foreigners are summoned
They know our dress code and style
Our style of adoring foreign things
Our style of dependency

In Ghana
We import “chewing” sticks
Tooth-picks, perfumed sticks
To sweeten and WHITEN our teeth

In Ghana
Our leaders
Those who should lead us
Have sold their conscience
To greed
To neocolonialism, dependency
To worshipping goats in white masks
Our greatest bane
From misty colonialism
To nasty neocolonialism
Dependency is our foreign policy
Whiteness is our signifier of being
Whiteness is our new ontology
Whiteness in kaleidoscope
Indian, Korean, Chinese, Indian
Even goats in white masks
Feed freely from our local palms
Freely feed on our trees of life

*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical” poetry. She can be reached at [email protected]