Arinze Kene
WHO Kehinde, sixteen, black, from London.
TO WHOM The audience (see note on ‘Direct audience address’ in the introduction).
WHERE Inner-city London. Exact location is unspecified. Perhaps you imagine him talking to us in his bedroom, a street or the park.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED The play, a series of interconnected monologues, describes the point at which three teenagers, Kehinde, Joanne and Rugrat, begin to grow up. They speak directly to the audience, and in this, Kehinde’s first monologue, he introduces himself.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
• | Kehinde is British of Nigerian descent. |
• | He is described as ‘mature’, ‘very sensible for his age’, with ‘a sensitivity about him; an innocence’. |
• | His grandmother has strong views on colour and race. In Kehinde’s next monologue he tells us about how she attacked his brother’s white girlfriend. |
• | Kehinde has a twin: a girl called ‘Taiwo’ to whom he is very close. Read the play to find out what happens to her. |
• | ‘Oyinbo’ means ‘white’. ‘Pehpeh’ means ‘breasts’. |
WHAT HE WANTS
• | To introduce himself. Note how closely he identifies himself with race and racial issues. |
• | To apologise for having hated the way ‘God’ made him. |
• | To express and share with us his own understanding of how immature he was and how he knows he needs to change and grow up. |
KEYWORDS mixed-race obsessive traded shameful compensate oyinbo
NB This play offers a number of other speeches from which to choose.
Kehinde
I used to have ‘mixed-raced-girl syndrome’. Mixed-race-girl syndrome is the long obsessive phase of over-fancying mixed-race girls. Girls of that lighter complexion. Most guys get it when they’re like fourteen, fifteen. My favourite was when that black African or Caribbean skin mixes with that white English or European skin. You get that sun-kissed finish.
At one point. I actually wanted to be mixed-race. I wished for it. I wished my hair wouldn’t curl over itself like pepper grains, I wanted it to be bouncy and coolie. But no, broom bristles instead I concluded I was stuck with. I’d gladly have traded this nose for one that was sharper at the end. Shameful, I know. I was so stupid, I got down one time, asked God to forgive me for my sins, to protect my family and to bless me with pink lips. I actually remember going to sleep wishing that I’d wake up with green eyes.
My prayers were obviously ignored and I didn’t turn into a mixed-raced boy. And if I were God I would’ve blanked me for a year just to chastise me for being so ungrateful of this beautiful black skin I was gifted with – Praise God. Believe I had a lot of growing up to do.
Well, I couldn’t have grown up all that quick though because next I got a really light-skinned girlfriend. I just couldn’t leave the lighties alone. Said, if I couldn’t be one, I’d have to represent one – to compensate.
My grandma calls it ‘Yellow Fever’. She said it all started around slavery times when white overseers would secretly admire the beauty. I’m sure that back then it was nothing to rape black women. Africa was like the white man’s back garden and he did whatever he saw fit with his fruit. She said it’s not our fault though, she says something’s wrong with us. She always used to say –
(Nigerian accent.) ‘You African men are magnet for oyinbo pehpeh too much. You de follow-follow and think you are among dem but they will let you know how black you are. IF you trust a white man to build the ceiling above your head, you mustn’t complain of neck problems, my child, na your fault be dat!’
If I bring home a girl who’s any bit lighter than me then –
‘Ah-Kehinde! It’s getting late, your oyinbo friend has to go home. Doesn’t she have a home or have her parents split up?’
Cos all white people’s parents are divorced according to Grandma.
My older brother, he would sneak girls into the house all the time. When Grandma would go by his room, he’d get the girl to hide down on the side of the bed, on the floor. 