A study of the aesthetics of beauty...beyond the unseen!

The title above is what I got out of the BBC’s controversial television movie, the line of beauty. It’s relevance to my entry however, remains my discovery of society’s need for conformity and (dare I say) our seeming laziness to look beyond the physical. I say all of this with reference to the events of the past weeks (I kick myself for not entering all this while).

I have been terribly busy over the last three weeks working and earning money as well as gathering a variety of experiences I probably haven’t seen before. The events of the past three weeks serve as both eye openers for me as well as a provision for further insights into the complexities of living abroad with reference to the role played by perception in modern life. A couple of weeks ago, Eniola tired of her current mobile phone decided to sell it on the internet like everyone else. As it turned out, she easily got a good response from potential buyers and almost concluded sale until she realised her potential buyer was from Ogun state Nigeria which lead her to investigate further. I won’t go into detail of what happened eventually, but as we all would guess; she came this close to being defrauded of her property. My query here is of the nature of those annoying ifs. Would she have investigated further if the buyer had not been Nigerian? If perception didn’t come into play, would she have lost her phone to a fraudster leading up to a couldawoulashoulda?

In the last three weeks, I have changed my hairstyle and look three times. In the first, I had an afro and then converted it into cornrows and finally shaved everything off. The delightful results of my effort were the many comments I received, good and otherwise! However, most interesting was the week I had on the cornrows. As I rode the train into work early that morning, I stood out like a sore thumb as one would expect considering it was peak time for travel, a Monday morning and the other passengers predominantly white business people on their way to work complete with their copy of the metro or guardian in hand. That morning, as the conductor eyed me and my ticket suspiciously, it took everything in me not to burst out laughing. This same man had sold me tickets many a time and even against the rules; sold them to me at rail card price. This morning however, he was grim and unsmiling; making sure my ticket was not a forgery as my appearance might have indicated. Incidents like this went on during the week in all sorts of places (in Sainsbury’s the cashier checked the back of my card to verify me, lol). This week as I reverted to my old boring prep school look, the events from above all disappeared like a bad dream. No suspicious looks, no curious glances and the icing on the akara; no hostile looks from the conductor on the train! Did one’s outward appearance affect the perception of the immediate environment? Are all cornrow wearing young black men, robbers, rapists and murderers; or is that just my impression?

As we were not allowed overtime at work (perhaps I shouldn’t use the collective here), I took on another job. I’ll leave the details of this other job for later entries, however it’s dire nature and immediate need hold certain relevance to this entry. I finally worked in an assembly line type setting and have seen what it is like. Never again! My curiosity has been sufficiently fed. What struck me in that dire cold building was the race demographic of those present! Whilst the job was not entirely a menial one, it wasn’t a blue, white or brown collar job either. The workforce here was predominantly young white kids, Indians and a handful of black people. The opposite of what you would see in the blue collar world of service centres and stereotype office environments African’s love so much, me included. Why do we shun these sorts of jobs, ‘these’ meaning semi-menial and menial jobs whilst more and more indigenous people seem to be reverting back to them? Is this to avoid the looming poverty of our backyards or perhaps is it just the fate of reoccurrence? Perhaps it is one of those situations of the full circle mentality. Oh I don’t know….

Anyway, all that said; I think I have learnt a few lessons in last couple of weeks. Perception remains a key factor of existence in modern day society, regardless of geography. Be you the Nigerian scammer in Ogun state, black cornrow wearing gangster or sedate scholarly African student; what you look like on the outside informs the way you are received. Perhaps conformity isn’t such a bad thing then? Perhaps the Nigerian scammer was a desperate young man, seeking a method of funding his university education in Nigeria. Perhaps, the ticket man on the train that morning had just had a bad one. Perhaps Africans worked in the other factory complexes in the same industrial compound I worked in. who knows! Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! When will all these questions be answered?