We don’t spend too much talking or thinking about it because we live in safe spaces in Africa. Others have built thick skins and just look the other way and take it. Yet others, such as Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, often let the warrior inside bubble to the surface and confront it in plain terms.
But it’s everywhere in our lives when we step outside our homes. Racism is the price of being the original race, of being black.
The story of Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Charles’s son, Harry, and the horrid treatment she received at the hands of the British Royal family, has shocked the world and concentrated minds on racism against black people. It has also brought out the racists, who think she has been untruthful and unkind to the poor royal dears, that she should have kissed the boots of her betters, who opened their family to her. Which, of course, they hardly did.
To be fair, racism is not confined to the Royal Family; the world is full of it. The concept of royalty has a lot to do with purity; it’s based on the assumption that one bloodline is superior to all others and therefore, the rest are inferior and must bow to it. Perhaps only Prince Diana’s impetuous red-head of a son would have the rebellious audacity to bring a black woman into the British Royal Family.
During the wedding, I saw how Prince Charles looked fixedly at his programme when the black choir let loose in that church in the Palace of Westminster and I knew Harry had made the very unwise decision of unburdening himself in the wind — he, and those around him, was sadly going to get dirty. You’re not born into a royal house to do as you please, even if your only use in life is to act as a spare for your luckier elder brother.
We teach our children to believe in themselves and many of us do our best to create a good place for them to live in peace and safety. We do our best to love our fellow man, irrespective of race. But the ugly truth is that we give our children our black genes — and a burden, the legacy of a world, which wouldn’t embrace us.
So, if you are a parent, you already know that these are the five things your children should expect when they move through the world.
First is rejection. They will have to expect — and learn to live with — being seated all alone on a church pew or sitting next to an empty chair in a crowded bus in some parts of the world. Most of the world does not want us.
Second is avoidance, which is related to the above. I was reading a Twitter thread by a mixed-race woman explaining how her American uncle would hastily shepherd them out of his house and receive them at a nearby restaurant. Even so-called loved ones don’t want to associate or be seen with you.
Third, and one of the most irritating parts of racism, is the contempt with which some of the other races regard Africans, sometimes masked in barely concealed amusement, bonhomie, “tolerance” or “love for black people”.
We’re regarded as naive, too trusting, lazy and not very clever. Of course, these limitations are to be found in individuals from all races, although I must say that folks such as the Chinese are amazingly hardworking and I’ve seen big-gut, beer-loving Englishmen who are too lazy to open their eyes.
Fourth, and quite dangerous, is dislike and violent hatred that some folks, especially the extremists, such as fascists, feel towards black people. There are millions more who will not do or say nothing, are unfailingly but distantly polite, but nurse violent passions against black people and will act on them on the rare occasion when they can do so safely, such as during riots and general breakdown of law and order.
The driver running down pedestrians in Charlotville comes to mind. As does a police officer calmly smothering with his knee a man begging for his life.
Finally, dehumanisation — the belief that we are not really human and are, therefore, not entitled to the same rights as “proper human beings”. Have you wondered why Donald Trump and his supporters insist that he won the election even though he got fewer votes? Is he saying that his opponent was elected by black votes, which don’t count?
Of all the manifestations, the last one is the most dangerous for us — not because it puts our lives and those of our loved ones at risk, but that it’s the one likely to provoke anger, reciprocal hatred and violence in black people.
There are parts of this world that are beautiful and welcoming to black people. There are non-blacks who are genuine and accepting of all races, not just blacks. There is kindness, love and fellow feeling in this world, from all races. But there is also the ugliness that confronted Meghan Markle in the heart of British royalty.
We just need to train ourselves to live without hatred; there is already enough hatred in the world as it is.
