Dogs are colorblind. They walk through life seeing everything in shades of grey. A brown dog would have no idea if the reason he was being mistreated was the color of his hair. And a yellow dog would never turn down a white dog simply because she was white, for the yellow dog would never know such a distinction. How lucky the dogs are. Unfortunately, humans for a long time have paid special attention to color. In fact, people all over the world have developed a divider called “race” entirely based on the color of skin. And unlike the brown dog, brown people are very aware that their hue places them socially below their lighter counterparts. The social divide is different all over the world, and it may be more distinct in some places than in others; but it is always there. Perhaps this is why when black people travel, they look for it, and black travel writers explore with their racial identity in mind and write about it. This racial viewpoint characterizes black travel writing gives it a flair all its own. Caryl Phillips is a prime example of such a black travel writer, for whom race is the salt and pepper of his work. In Caryl Phillips’ The European Tribe, Phillips pieces together his own racial identity through his travels.

Phillips first shows us how severely famished he was for an understanding of his own racial identity. As a young, black boy in Britain, he was always cognizant of his dark skin. However, he was never given an adequate explanation of the significance of his race. In the introduction, Phillips tells a story of an English teacher making a joke in class about his being from Wales because of his surname, causing the entire class to erupt in laughter (2). The racial connotation was present, of course. Unfortunately, Phillips had teachers who took liberties to expose his different-ness without properly explaining it, teaching it, or celebrating it. However, this was not only true of his elementary experience. Rather, even at Oxford, Phillips feels black, but isolated from his blackness. This is evident even in how he describes the one black, American he becomes close to: “It was a crazy black American… with his broad afro, half-mast checkered flares, gold rimmed pebble gasses, and thin wiry 5 foot 7 ½ inch frame… [who yelled] ‘Hey you, motherfucker.’ [down the street]” (4). Phillips’ tone shows how distanced he is from other blacks by his British background, even though he discusses how distanced he is from other Europeans by his blackness. As Dorothy Lazard points out in her discussion of European Tribe as a coming-of-age narrative, Phillips’ racial perspective is unique because, as Lazard says, “the dual identity of the privileged Brit and the subjugated Black, begin to surface” (Lazard 181).

Once he leaves his home in Britain, every place he visits offers him some bit of racial identity. He got his first strong taste of race in America. Within just a few days, he had avoided being accosted by a Ku Klux Klan rally. He had been harassed by police in two different cities, had been called “boy” by a white woman who mistook him for a bellhop, and had been ignored by the clerk at a supermarket who would check every white person out before tending to Phillips’ needs (6). If Phillips needed an in-your-face, concrete definition of what it meant to be black, he could have considered himself served. On the other hand, however, Phillips’ personal identity as a black Brit would never be quite so simple. For when he journeyed to Casablanca, Morocco, his Western identity seeped through his pen. As Lazard states, “His estrangement from this world is evident. His European sensibility is on display” (Lazard 183). While many members of the Black Diaspora feel a spiritual connection to Africa and treat a journey to the continent as a sort of trip home, Phillips appears to have no such sentiment. In A New World Order, another of Phillips’ works, he asks himself “To what extent do I belong to this place?” (Phillips 307). In the same source he also explains his feelings about Africa: “I recognize the place, I feel at home here, but I don’t belong. I am of, and not off, this place” (Phillips 1). Lazard further explains, “In Africa he is another type of ‘other,’ a First World visitor to a Third World locale” (Lazard 183). Phillips’ European upbringing is a part of his identity, also.

But regardless of his British background, Phillips learns that he is first a black man in the eyes of the world. In Spain, he is called “el senor negro” by the young boys with whom he interacts (29). Later, in the chapter “In the ghetto,” Phillips furthers his self-discovery by relating to the Jew, who is “still Europe’s nigger,” as Phillips sees it (53). By making this comparison, Phillips shows his developing self-identity as an “other” or outcast in society. This identity is solidified, in Norway, where he is harassed by custom agents as soon as he arrives at the Oslo airport. Black is black, transcontinental.

The European Tribe is an engaging piece. Phillips’ firsthand experiences are shared by many black people whether they have traveled or not. For Phillips, traveling helped him to find himself and to discover who he is as a black man and a European. And as a Black man, he learned that people are not colorblind; only the dogs.

Works Cited

Lazard, Dorothy. “Reading Caryl Phillips’ The European Tribe as a Coming-of-Age Narrative,” BMa: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review 9.1: Fall 2003. pp. 179-190.

Phillips, Caryl. A New Word Order: Essays. New York: Vintage International, 2002.

Phillips, Caryl. The European Tribe. New York: Vintage Books, 1987.

Britney "Breeze" Bennet

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