The Voice Newspaper : Article submitted about RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISCLOSURE IN AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES

Dear Editor of the Voice Newspaper ,

I would like to submit an article for your consideration . The article regards the recent public outburst against the firing of a TV news presenter after he compared a man to an ape.

Contrary to Dr. Sewell I agree to his sacking . I am an historian who knows the weight of the comparison mentioned above and also what our recent history tells us about the name.

Kindly considering publishing the article online or in print as opinion , as letter or in your editorial. I also would like to receive a copy by post to my children . 

Hope to hear from you soon,

Best regards,

Ariane Brito

Historian and Writer

RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISCLOSURE IN AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES

 

African and Afro Caribbean countries like Kenya, Guiana, South Africa, Jamaica etc have 100 years plus problems of thousands of people originally from India using British names but having arrived at the lands in question with an Indian or Indian Chinese name. I am baffled today, as I am reading the newspapers and what we call Kik (Indian man passing out as a Black Caribbean man with a British name) is discussing what offends or not African Caribbean people.

Understandably, I would not be able to speak on behalf of African and African Caribbean people, nor would Afrikaans or Arabs from Africa like Libyans and Moroccans so I am wondering why people presupposing to be what they are not would state as a 'Caribbean man' that the word monkey or ape is not offensive to black people and the war culture is at one time low.

Now this is how the people who migrated from India to the countries mentioned above look in the majority,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figures: Pictures from Daily Mail on India Holy people

I am not disputing their right to say why an African or Caribbean person shouldn't feel offended for being called Ape or Monkey ( when this concept was what mostly convinced and legitimized Blacks Transatlantic slave trade), I am just wondering if they have not shared nor experienced the African History of Slavery on behalf of being deemed a monkey or an ape, why would they -people like this ! - opinionate as to what might or not offend Afro Caribbean people?

I would not opinionate in what would offend, or not, a Muslim person or a Chinese person because I do not have experienced the pride and pain , historically and culturally of being Muslim or Chinese ,so why would I say what offends them or not or speak like one of them on behalf of them?

For example, what do you make of this story and it's protagonists and how hypocritical can one be in relation to the word ' monkey' , and again should we be allowed to racially and ethnically disclose people today assuming as Afro Caribbean or African when two generations up they were Indian with Indian names? In Africa Afrikaans, Arabs and other Africans likewise Caribbean can well distinguish kiks because of their voices and their caricature acting out as 'blacks' however we cannot ignore the privilege and oppressive force kiks had in South African Army when killing Mozambicans and in the role of South African Army fighting with rebels in the destruction of what was once Zaire and is now DRC and Congo and prior to that of South African troops viciously killing Angolans and Cubans which assisted Angolans during the Colonial War against Portugal. 

While White Cubans like Che Guevara were being killed fighting for Africans freedom, Indians were being placed in South Africa colored housing and bringing drugs from Afghanistan into South Africa. While White Arabs like Gadhafi were working for the African Union, Indians were exporting children from Uganda and Nigeria and putting them for sale on streets of Italy, Portugal and Britain. My mom told me that she something that still hunts her are the Nigerian and Ugandan girls she sees on the road every time she must visit Cruz de Pau in Portugal.  

We can't forget the violence Africans were exposed at the hands of Indians before Idi Amin took matter in his hands and the violence they are still exposed to by having people who never shared their History of Slavery to talk as them on their behalf about the impact or being likened to a monkey, an ape or a parrot. 

The historical violence they were victims on behalf of this concept is 100 times worse than an Arab person being called Ben Laden or terrorist because that concept meant for Africans, rape, theft and abduction from their parents and communities, forced labor, forced inter racial rape and procreation, and centuries of exclusion and discrimination.

There is nothing less cruel, less hypocritical than to minimize the value and meaning of being likened to little monkey, a monkey, an ape or a parrot. Would he have likened an Arab to a terrorist or a German to a Nazi? Would he have likened a Jewish to an Auschwitz prisoner? Would he? Would he have likened a German to a pig?

So why can't people who are directly related to Africa or the Caribbean like African-Arabs like Libyans, Afrikaans, Africans and Afro Caribbean demand that families who originate from other places who have for decades hated their hosts, personified their hosts and minimized their history be subject to public ethnic and racial disclosure to ensure the rights of people who are directly affected by certain words - because they were victims of certain situations because of certain words as monkey, ape and parrot?

I mean would this be the same as naming a Jewish Iranian, with a Muslim name, as Jewish just because two generations up his family migrated to Iran to escape European Nazism? In the latter case that would be obviously anti-Semitic because of the nature of hate towards Jewish and their need to protect themselves when societies over and over again failed to protect them on time from Evil as Nazis, but what about these persons who other people like me would like to say.... 'You know what, ok you look like African Caribbean , but do you really know what it is if you don't share the History which marked and conditioned these people from the start of the Transatlantic slave until today'?

What's your thought on the matter?

Best wishes,

Ariane