Why isn't Racism & Colorism From Black Africans Talked About

Tuesday, 28 May 2024

By TB Obwoge

I've written about the issues of racism and colorism in Africa before, as a matter of fact it is one of my favorite topics because its the most ignored topic. Black Africans, mostly, are so quick to proclaim that they're the most accepting people in the world. Even claiming they're too accepting. Which is really odd because skin color and shade matters more to a Black African to even some white people.

Black America has had this conversation for decades and we are also failing at ending this issue. However not many Black Africans are fighting against colorist and issues surrounding colorism.

See when you are not the right shade, you don't belong in Africa, according to many Africans. It is just that simple, the same way a racist in America would proclaim a person as n0t being American.

Below is a video of a biracial young woman, who says her mother is Ghanain and her father is Indian. I made this video and added some screenshots of the comments, I wanted people to read the hateful comments proclaiming she is NOT a Ghanaian.

There are even comments claiming she's not Ghanaian because of her British sounding accent.

Several people claimed, you are what your father is, so many of those making the comments, said "you're Indian!"

Oddly enough JJ Rawlings, his father was a white Scottish man, not many people called him a white Scottish man. Even when Idris Elba went to Ghana, they didn't insult his British accent, they didn't call him Sierra Leonean either. As I believe his mother is Ghanaian and his father is from Sierra Leone. But because he has darker skin color, like the majority of Black Africans, especially Ghanaians, not one person insulted him like this lighter skinned woman.

A while back on Twitter I came across a post from someone that appears to be Arab, possibly one of Ghana’s many Lebanese citizens. He posts about being told to go back to his own country at least 5–10 times a day. He even says that people have called Ghana Immigration on him.

Ghana police and immigration stopped vehicles I was riding in several times, always asking for donations or gifts for them. Which is the common way they ask for bribery money. Sadly most of the Ghanaians I was driving with were so fearful of the police they gave them money.

Ghana is a very corrupt country and you risk having to pay a lot of extra money for living in Ghana as a foreigner, especially when you are white or they think you're white.

Ghanaians on social media and in Ghana tend to call me a liar, even when I show videos or photos, even when they themselves think that I'm a white person. Ghanaians and many Africans tend to respond with insults, then they spout the forever lie, "Africans are accepting of everyone!"

If that were true, why is there so much infighting, travlism and fighting from African to African on the continent? Also its like many of the Africans living outside of Africa seem to refuse to follow the news but thats another topic for another day.

Here is a question and answer posted on a website, asking about Black people being racists. However since this is in America this is not very helpful for Afrian countries where the majority of the population are Black people.

Question;

Recently I attended a showing of your traveling exhibition called, Them. It was generally good but I saw something that disturbed me. Why did you include the “white trash” costume and the tee that had “arrest all whites” in the exhibition? I am a middle-aged white person and even I know that blacks and other racial minorities cannot be racist, just like women can not be sexists. Racism equals power. Whites are not hurt by the everyday flow of society. I think you are trying so hard to be objective that you end up being politically correct.-- J.R.C. - Grand Rapids, Mich.

Portion of the Answer;

I will try to focus my rant. Can blacks be racist? The answer, of course, will depend on how you define racism. If you define it as “prejudice against or hatred toward another race,” then the answer is yes. If you define racism as “the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race,” the answer is yes. And if you define racism as “prejudice and discrimination rooted in race-based loathing,” then the answer is, again, yes. However, if you define racism as “a system of group privilege by those who have a disproportionate share of society’s power, prestige, property, and privilege,” then the answer is no. In the end, it is my opinion that individual blacks can be and sometimes are racists. However, collectively, blacks are neither the primary creators nor beneficiaries of the racism that permeates society today.

Let me share with you a story from my journey. In the early 1970s, I was one of several hundred black- and brown-skinned children who were sent to Prichard Junior High, a school that was proudly all-white. Recall that on May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (347 U.S. 483) had declared that state laws which permitted separate public schools for whites and blacks had in fact denied black children equal education opportunities. By a 9-0 decision, the High Court had ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Brown attacked de jure (legal) segregation as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United State Constitution.

Source: JimCrowMuseum

There are no articles about Black Africans being racists, there are many about colorism and skin bleaching. However the racism in Africa is always attributed to North Africans being racists towards those from African counties in Sub-Saharan African countries.

Thank you for reading 🙏🏽 Please consider buying a coffee for Lacey’s House efforts in Gender Equality & Children’s Rights.

©️TB Obwoge 2024 All Rights Reserved