QUOTABLE

Other Africans mistook visiting black Americans at first glance for natives, whereupon they treated them as tribal enemies or as allies, depending solely on each individual's "ethnic" looks. When the Washington Post's [Keith] Richburg was entering Zaïre, the customs official eyed him and insisted, despite Richburg's denials, that he was really a Zaïrean with a phony American passport. "Finally I thought of one thing to convince him," Richburg writes. "Okay," I said, pushing my French to its limit, "suppose I was a Zaïrean. And suppose I did manage to get myself a fake American passport...Tell me, why on earth would I be trying to sneak back into Zaïre?" The immigration officer pondered this for a moment, churning over in his mind the dizzying array of possibilities a fake US passport might offer..."You are right," he concluded, as he picked up his rubber stamp and pounded in my entry. "You are American..."

Jim Sleeper, Liberal Racism