When an American Car Hits a Double Standard in Kenya

An American diplomat in Nairobi attends a party at his ambassador’s residence and, possibly after a drink or two, gets into a head-on collision with a car driven by a teacher. The diplomat calls the American Embassy for help, a security detail arrives and whisks him away to a hospital, while the occupants of the other car are left behind, because it is assumed they are Kenyans. Reuben Gray, an African-American who teaches the diplomat’s son at the International School of Kenya, dies. Why didn’t the American diplomat or the Embassy security detail bother to help him? Had he been white, would he have received assistance? An excellent story in today’s Washington Post.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.