Earlier in May, black people, and
just about everyone, were left puzzled when news broke of a white student who called the police on Nigerian-born
Lolade Siyonbola for sleeping off in a Yale University common room. Now the Nigerian wants racists
to ask themselves some questions.
Students and just about anyone who has a high-powered lifestyle
tend to sleep off in situations like that - what Lolade did was not in any way
strange. That she was reported to the police for it though speaks to a much
larger problem; white people treat blacks, and most racial minorities, with
such suspicion that they often call the police on them for just being.
This perception is not new. It is a systemic problem that dates
back centuries, to a time when the only black people in America came in chains
aboard boats against their own will.
In the early years, blacks were viewed as savages, an uncivilised
population that was more aggressive than rational.
During the years of slavery, that perception was further
embellished; blacks were depicted as beneficiaries of white sophistication; a
race that could be taught to work and dress in normal clothes, and even speak
their languages, but was still as dangerous as ever.
In contemporary times, that image has been diluted by the death of
slavery, civil rights and the death of segregation.
Black People are Dangerous 101
However, the image of the black person as a dangerous,
unpredictable entity remains and a generation of white people are holding on to
it, more so in a country where the president, Donald Trump, has been accused of
racist remarks and policies.
The incident at Yale is only one in a series of cases that
highlight the bias against black people in the United States.
Just this Monday, a white woman was caught on video calling the
police on a black family, who were enjoying a barbeque at a park in Parkland, California.
Before that, in April, a white woman reported Bob Marley's granddaughter, DonishaPrendergast and
a group of black women, for a partial burglary because as she later explained,
"they did not wave to her".
While these examples highlight cases of criminal suspicion, racial
bias often incites into abuse for just about any reason.
This undue profiling is a reality that has become nearly normal
for black Americans; for Africans in the United States and Europe, the case is
almost always the same.
While warming up for a German Bundesliga game
in January, Nigerian duo Leon Balogun and Anthony Ujah were
racially abused by fans of the German club, Hannover.
Balogun would later tweet that they were subjected to monkey
chants while warming up as substitutes.
Mainz confirmed the abuse and contacted the relevant authorities.
A simple solution to a complicated problem
Explicit shows of racism such as these are easy to discern but in
cases such as Lolade's, it's much more difficult to get people to own up to an
intrinsic bias.
Lolade has a simple solution for this.
“To anyone who thinks it’s ok to
use the police force in this manner, examine yourself for bias against black
people,” Siyonbola told Quartz via email.
“Question whether you would do
that to someone white, and whether you would tolerate such treatment towards
your loved ones.”
As simple as it sounds, a large part of the solution requires
self-examination.
While comments like Kanye West's explosive slavery was a choice
comments threaten to dismiss the existence of a bias against minorities, it is
clear that white people need to acknowledge the existence of a prejudice
against people with dark skin, whether their name is Rodney or Lolade.
Obviously, resolving racism will take much more than this but with
black people turning towards the importance of generational wealth and
empowering the homestead aka Afrika, maybe, just maybe, we can begin to pick
things up from there.
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