Vanessa Nakate faced racism but Black Africans are racist too

As some Ugandans already know, the activist was photographed by the Associated Press, a major US news agency, along with other climate activists in Switzerland, but was cropped out of the group photo, in which she was the only Black person, or person of colour, as Americans love to say.

The Associated Press went ahead and used the photo without Ms Nakate, sparking a major backlash. It forced the agency to apologise and to replace the cropped image with the original photo.

Social media has since gone into overdrive about the incident, with many people around the world accusing the Associated Press of racism. Ms Nakate was quoted by the media as saying: “This is the first time in my life that I understood the definition of the word racism.” She also recorded an emotional video about her experience.

I was not surprised one little bit by what the Associated Press did. Racism is alive and kicking, and there is any number of Black Africans and non-Africans who face racism almost on a daily basis. It is probably safe to conclude that racism will always be alive as long as humanity is alive.

The Portuguese editor and publisher Jose Manuel Fernandez summed it up best when he told a British journalist in a recent interview: “I think we’re all racist. Racism is something that’s part of human nature. It’s part of our defence mechanism. This means there’s racism everywhere. That’s the battle that never ends.”

Sometimes racists do not even know they are racist, and victims of racism are also sometimes racist. Many Black Africans who have travelled the world and faced racism often treat White people with more respect than fellow Africans. A Black African manager who tells his personal assistant that he is too busy to take phone calls will drop everything to answer a call from a White person.

In the US, African-Americans are on the receiving end of racism and even get ignored when they flag down taxis in cities like New York. Yet most African-Americans I have met want to have nothing to do with Africa and Black Africans. And many have never been to the continent of their forefathers largely because it is poor.

That is where we stand with racism. Some Black Africans have even done things that make some people think that they are probably not happy with who they are, their culture and traditions, and that they need to adapt to be accepted.

When I was watching the video Ms Nakate recorded in the wake of the photo saga, I looked closely at her hair, and I could see that it is not normal African hair. It is imitation hair, or fake hair, as those who do not care about politeness would say. And I was inwardly wondering why she had to do this. She would, after all, still be a climate change activist with her normal African hair.

Nine in 10 Africans who are expecting a baby will go to great lengths to choose a ‘cool’ first name for the baby, and that name will nearly always be an English or European name even though the parents do not have the vaguest idea what the name means.

None of this is meant to suggest that Africans are racially discriminated against because they do not take pride in their culture. My point is that even when we do things we think will enable us to fit in and be accepted by races we hold in high esteem, we still face racial discrimination.

For Black Africans, I think, racism is reinforced by the fact that they are the world’s poorest people. Poverty is not and has never been a crime, but being poor is one of the worst things anyone can be.

If Black people were in the happy position of calling the shots in this world and non-Black people were the poorest, least developed, modestly educated or illiterate, often ready and willing to risk their lives and go to countries where they are unwanted, the situation would be totally different. Non-Black people would be the real victims of racism.

The writer is a journalist and former Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected]
@kazbuk