Why it’s so extremely insensitive to believe or otherwise?? Multimedia Studio coincidentally confronted with one of the African nationals and conversation interact as follows about Race, Colour, Religion and finally Racism still prevails amongst the masses of this queer world..
Last year, One of our Multimedia Studio's colleague had pleasure of interacting with a Nigerian co-passenger on a extended flight to London not only sharing a typical love for Bollywood, we also happened to share the identical former colonial ‘masters.’ We chatted and discuss for hours about the systems of power in our respective post-colonial countries. During this discussion, I asked her how racism plays call at Africa, an ‘all-black’ continent? her answer remains the foremost ingenious thing someone has ever told so far!
“You know that there are not any black people in Africa,” she remarked in an absolutely calm manner. Initially, it sounded nonsensical to me. Of course, there are black people in Africa. there's a full continent of black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that?
“Africans aren't black,” she said. “They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Akan, Ndebele. they're not black. they're just themselves. they're humans on this earth, that's how they see themselves, which is who they're.” I felt slapped into a realization and slowly began to perceive a large misconception that I had been unaware of till present, perhaps reading the confusion on my face she continued. “They don’t become black until they're going to America or arrive at Europe. They become black once they first land into the Western world that chooses to work out them that way.”
After this discussion, I became cognizant of a flagrantly held misconception that has crept into all discourse about race. Unfortunately, it's become far too common for people to condole with people solely on the idea of their colour. Such a world-view treats all people of color as a monolith, grossly mis-characterizing over a billion people into one identity. This false collective is extremely harmful because it inadvertently subdues the popular identity of the constituents, forcing them into a frame the onlooker wants to work out them in. for instance, the Congolese are extremely happy with their musical tradition which works back centuries. Once, we reduce their identity solely in terms of color we might be projecting our own perception of them which doesn't adequately capture their essence.
A notable example of such a mis-characterization is that the myth of ‘sub-Saharan Africa’. For the western media, about 50 nations within the region below Sahara represent regions of utmost poverty. Swathes of land infested with famine which has no scope for human development. a weird land where a toddler would die in seconds if not for the generosity of the donors. However, there's nothing farther from the reality. Let’s observe two regions under this arbitrary noun — Somalia and Ivory Coast. These two nations are as remote from one another as London is from Tehran. On a per-capita basis, Ivory Coast’s GDP is seven times that of Somalia, roughly adequate to the gradation between the united kingdom and Iran. Now, if someone was to proclaim that Iran and UK are similar countries, i'm sure they might be laughed out of the area. But when it involves the African continent, esteemed institutions like the planet Bank and international organisation use terms like ‘sub-Saharan’ on a day to day.
While for one group handpick indicators like color function convenient methods of classification, for others they're the worst styles of modern colonialism. A process during which the features, the nations pride oneself in are ignored and therefore the developed nations take free reign to characterize them like however, they appear fit. to form matters worse, when called out for such a blatant misrepresentation, rather than accepting our ignorance, plenty folks tend to initiate attacks on the colonized, asking them to grow a ‘tougher skin’ or to not be offended when their identity is steamrolled because ‘words are harmless’. I feel that such normalization also furthers the stereotype.
Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer-winning scholar on race expounds on how blackness was created as a race. the subsequent statement by her perfectly encapsulates how such a convoluted bias came into place. “In the making of the New World, the Europeans became white, Africans black, and everybody else yellow, red, or brown. Humans were set apart and identified solely in contrast to one another and ranked in an arbitrary manner by the people in power, it absolutely was within the process of ranking that we were all cast into assigned roles to fulfill the wants of the larger production; none folks are ourselves.” it's safe to mention that if we still hold on to the current mis-characterization we might be subliminally furthering a system that has for hundreds of years, sown seeds of discord in our shared habitat.
It is imperative to acknowledge that more often than not, people are sensitive and don't want to harm others. They find yourself holding on to the biases simply because they haven’t been alert to it and would take care as soon as they understand the rationale behind it. Therefore, it's not for political decorum to put behind them in cells or to ban words altogether. Yes, all the nations are in Africa, and yes, geographically all of them are located below the Sahara. During this light, all of them are certainly individually ‘sub-Saharan’ exactly how America are often called ‘trans-Atlantic.’ However, the matter sets at the instant we start to ascribe a typical identity to them, simply because they're near one another. We inadvertently associate them on the premise color of their skin because that will be a signifies of identity within the west, it's this gross generalization all folks should be extremely careful about because there are not any black people in Africa.
Conclusion, Race has not declined in significance in the United States or Britain or in Europe; rather its significance has changed. Race remains an important lens through which current issues and events are perceived and explained, as well as a fundamental dimension of institutional relations of inequality. Although the assertion of the biological inequality of different races is an ideology which has fallen largely into disrepute, race-based symbolism nevertheless remains an important explanatory framework for many present-day issues and challenges, as well as a legitimating ideology for elites and more.
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