A popular African proverb says: “When the python fails to act as one, little ones will mistake it for a rope and use it to tie their firewood”.
With broken and bleeding heart, I am constrained to put to writing what we – the black African people are passing through in China and in the hands of the Chinese. Racial discrimination has never been so obvious and glaring to me until I came to China and to every person of colour in China, irrespective of country and racial inclination, being segregated against on daily basis in shopping malls, bus stations, subways, public transports, roads, walk ways – you name it, isn’t something new any longer.
We have had to choose the best option of accepting and living with the evil and malicious trend as though it doesn’t hurt but the truth is that we don’t have any other option. Some of them will even have the temerity to tell you to your face that you should go to your country if you feel hurt because “this is China”.
We are faced with so much discrimination that most times when you remember the ill-treatment, the ungodly talks and laughter as well as the “finger-pointing” you get from all around you, going out becomes a problem as you must have to first conquer the battle in your head before you step out otherwise you will be made to think that you are an abomination for being born black.
Lessons from Coronavirus
Following the covid-19 outbreak in China around December 2019, a little “magic” was wrought as in opening the eyes of some Chinese towards segregation and cruel treatment we faced on daily basis or so we thought. In late January, they were already crying foul because people were distancing themselves from them – in malls and in subways. People won’t sit with them on the same seat in public buses and in subways and for them that were living outside China, people pointed fingers at them while murmuring to themselves in indistinct voices and avoided close contact with them as.
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African people cried and lamented endlessly on national TV and on different social media platforms. They sought for empathy and sympathy and didn’t see reasons why they should be treated with such disdain. They made placards with the inscriptions like “I am a Chinese, I am not the virus” “Hug me, I am a human being and not a virus” and mounted on streets seeking for peoples’ empathy and love – the same they couldn’t give to foreigners in their country.
We were both ‘surprised’ and “happy”! Surprised because we thought that since they are racists and discriminate against people, they shouldn’t feel bad when treated the same way and then we were happy that finally, Karma has eventually caught up with them, they are being paid in their own coin and perhaps they will learn to treat foreigners right when all this is over but guess what?, We were utterly wrong – they didn’t change a bit, rather, they became even worse or perhaps showed us the other side of them we never saw – they proved unequivocally that they are hell bent on their wickedness and malicious treatment on Africans and to the extent of even destroying us entirely if they could.
