RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NY Times: "A Racist Turn in India"

Kwabena

In this day and age Africans are still hit with the deadly end of the rod wherever they go and found themselves even in their own countries by foreigners. In Ghana we worship Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, Chinese, and above all whites, our "Me Buroni." If there is a job opportunity, a Ghanaian is more likely to tiptoe, look above the heads of fellow Ghanaians, and call on distant-placed light-complexioned foreigners for the job or the contract, even in building a tomb for the late President John Atta Mills. On a bus, a Ghanaian is more likely to give up his/her seat to Chinese, Lebanese, Syrians, Indians, etc. Hmm! A white person would be given the passenger seat beside the driver - we call it "front seat" or "first class!" As a graduate student of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana, Legon, whenever we queued for "trotro' or public transport, then behind the precincts of of the IAS, and there were white foreign students among us, we gave our positions in the queue to them. When I arrived in Canada to continue with my graduate studies at the MA level, I had several opportunities to reminisce about the differences between how foreign students in Ghana were privileged as well as integrated into the fabric of campus life by all and sundry and my dire circumstances like a leper at an Akan Odwira festival! Thus there are lived experiences overseas that conscientize us: if I were to join the queues of yesteryears, I would certainly not give up my slot in the line to any foreign student. And even teaching positions in our higher institutions are easily colonized by foreigners who own light-skin. Why oh why? Africans don suffer suffer at home and we don suffer abroad. Caveat: absolutely, these are generalities that may not speak to other people's experiences!   These and others are fictionally documented in my forthcoming "immigrant fiction" entitled "Velvet Seekers: Enslaving Africans in these Parts."

 

Kwabena 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 9:14 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NY Times: "A Racist Turn in India"

Contributing Op-Ed Writer

By NILANJANA S. ROY
Jan 24,  2014

NEW DELHI — The Africans — Nigerians, Ghanaians, Ugandans — began leaving my neighborhood in New Delhi around December. Each week, more and more families exited. Some went to parts of Delhi considered more accepting of Africans; others to areas where the residents were thought to be less interfering in general. I have heard that some of the Ghanaian families had gone back to Africa, but I don't know that for sure.

For years, they had been a part of the swirl of cultures, languages and races that makes up this part of the capital. The Nigerian women in their bright dresses out for evening strolls and the Cameroonian family with the curious-eyed baby at the ice-cream van had made a life for themselves alongside the Afghans, Tamils and Iranians.

On Oct. 31, about a month before the departures started, a Nigerian national, rumored to have been in the drug trade, was found dead in Goa. Nigerians in the coastal state protested his murder as an act of racism, while posters read: "We want peace in Goa. Say no to Nigerians. Say no to drugs." One state minister threatened to throw out Nigerians living illegally. Another equated them with a cancer. He later apologized, adding that he hadn't imagined there would be a "problem" with his statement.

read balance: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/roy-the-wrong-kind-of-foreigner.html?ref=international

--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu