From African to African American: How brush with police changed Congolese refugee’s life — and his camera’s focus

“I think this is a moment for me and my generation,” Patrick Reponse said. “It’s a wake-up moment. This is the moment to understand what’s really going on. You’ve got to help or you don’t.”

SHARE From African to African American: How brush with police changed Congolese refugee’s life — and his camera’s focus
A self-portrait of Patrick Reponse, a Congolese refugee and Columbia College photojournalism student.

A self-portrait of Patrick Reponse, a Congolese refugee and Columbia College photojournalism student.

Photo taken by Patrick Reponse

Patrick Reponse came to the U.S. in 2007 as a child refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

It wasn’t until a Sunday night about four months ago that he made the mental switch to thinking of himself as an African American rather than an African.

That was the night Chicago police stopped Reponse, now 21, as he was about to enter the front door of the Rogers Park apartment building where he lives with his older brother. Reponse was coming home from his job at a Lake View restaurant, a job he has held the past five years while attending school.

Opinion bug

Opinion

From a certain perspective, nothing much happened that night. Police questioned Reponse, checked his identification, then allowed him to go. But it was the first time Reponse was consciously aware of being racially profiled.

And that has made all the difference.

“I asked them: What did I do?” Reponse recalled. 

“You looked suspicious,” he says they told him. “They kept repeating: You fit a description.”

“I started freaking out a little bit, because I didn’t know how to react,” Reponse told me in an interview at his dining room table.

The incident caused an awakening of sorts for this sensitive young man who graduated from Alcott College Prep and now studies photojournalism at Columbia College.

“Now, I’m an African American. I’m not African no more. Because the skin is all they see,” he said. “I just feel something change in my life.”

Motivated by this newfound cultural identity, Reponse has been attending the George Floyd protests and documenting the events with his photography. 

His work is quite good, not that I’m an expert, but I know enough that I could see him having a future as a professional photographer, if that’s what he wants.

For now, it’s an outlet for self-expression at a time when he has much to express.

“This is I guess for me a turning point for our generation to see how many young people are involved in this protest,” Reponse said. “Young people have to show they care about this movement.”

First generation African immigrants don’t always see that as their role in American society, Reponse notes. Many prefer the traditional path of the immigrant in America: work hard, get an education, follow the rules and avoid conflict.

“Some of them lack the understanding of the struggle of the African American here,” explains Reponse’s big brother Espoire when Reponse struggles to find the right words. “A lot of people in our community, this is unfortunately true. Some of them don’t sympathize. They don’t view this as their issue to fight for. They don’t understand.”

“They don’t understand we have the same skin tone,” added Reponse.

Reponse now sees the struggle of African Americans as his own.

“I think this is a moment for me and my generation,” he said. “It’s a wake-up moment. This is the moment to understand what’s really going on. You’ve got to help or you don’t.”

To fully appreciate Reponse’s story, you need to know the circumstances that brought him to this country.

His family was among thousands of Banyamulenge forced to flee the Congo in the face of persecution of their ethnic Tutsi tribe. They relocated to a United Nations-run refugee camp in Burundi.

On August 13, 2004, the camp was attacked by Hutu rebels. Reponse’s mother and six other relatives were among 166 refugees murdered in what is known as the Gatumba massacre.

The victims, singled out on the basis of their ethnicity, were shot and burned to death.

The survivors were moved to a new camp in Rwanda, and later Reponse’s family was brought from there to Chicago by the relief agency RefugeeOne.

So what we have is a young man chased off one continent by ethnic hatred now trying to make his way in a world where it takes a different form.

I asked him what that unique vantage point has taught him.

“I learned at a young age there is hatred everywhere,” Reponse said. “You can’t escape the hatred. You just have to treat other people the way you want to be treated.”

“When we’re talking, I don’t see the color as long as we have connection. For me, race is a blank. You’re a human. I’m a human. I don’t judge you from your background. I don’t judge you from your race.”

Reponse hopes his photography will enable him to travel the world, to learn about people from different cultures and to share their stories — with a focus on human rights.

I wished him well, but asked that he not forget about also telling stories from his adopted hometown. We could benefit from his perspective.

The Latest
Only two days after an embarrassing loss to lowly Washington, the Bulls put on a defensive clinic against Indiana.
One woman suffered a gunshot wound to the neck. In each incident, the four to five men armed with rifles, handguns and knives, approached victims on the street in Logan Square, Portage Park, Avondale, Hermosa threatened or struck them before taking their belongings, police said.
For as big of a tournament moment as Terrence Shannon Jr. is having, it hasn’t been deemed “madness” because, under the brightest lights, he has been silent.
This year, to continue making history, the Illini will have to get past No. 2-seeded Iowa State.