RACISM IN ITALY: SISTER SHARES ORDEAL

Being Black in Italy can get you a lot of unwanted attention. In a series of TikTok posts, influencer @thehighlowfashionista recorded how uncomfortable she felt from the moment she arrived - with constant stares and rude gestures. In this particular selfie video filmed in a restaurant, she gets the middle finger from a man sitting in the corner behind her - and says he’d relocated himself there just to give her more abuse.

Of course, one shouldn’t generalise from one person’s bad experience. But her trip appears to have taken place late last year - the same time an Ipsos survey of Italian attitudes towards Africans was published (“Africa and Health: The Opinion of Italians”). This found that most Italians themselves believe that people of African origin frequently suffer from racism in their country.

Continued…….. That’s certainly been on display in Italian football - where fans have treated African-origin players like Mario Balotelli, Victor Osimhen and Romelu Lukaku appallingly.

If you are black and have been to Italy, what’s been your experience like?

African Stream founder Ahmed Kaballo says people shouted racist abuse from cars when he visited the Italian city of Pompei in 2018. Let us know your experiences in the comments. Good and bad.

Video credit: @thehighlowfashionista

HOW WESTERN MEDIA PICK THEIR STORIES

A humorous yet accurate short video shared by @nile.nights (Instagram) on how the mainstream Western media selectively chooses to report news.

While Russia’s war on Ukraine (rightly) receives extensive coverage, other places in the world suffering from devastating violence and catastrophic humanitarian crises - such as the Congo and Sudan - barely make the news.

This attitude of the mainstream media is also reflected in the policies of Western governments. On the one hand, great support was offered to Ukrainian victims at the onset of the war. They were received with open arms by European nations, while immigration policies towards Black and Brown refugees differ starkly. The British state offered between · £350- £500 per month to house a Ukrainian refugee.

Continued……However, no such policy was offered to Sudanese refugees despite Sudan being a former British colony and many of the problems the country is grappling with today can be traced back to British divide and rule polices in the country. Certain comments by certain reporters suggest why that might be. In 2022, CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata, while speaking on Ukraine, said that it “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades.

This is a relatively civilised, relatively European - I have to choose those words carefully, too - city, one where you wouldn’t expect that.”

That same year the BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.” Rather than challenge the outrageously racist comment, the BBC host replied, “I understand and respect the emotion.”

Conservative UK poiltician Daniel Hannan echoed those sentiments, writing in The Telegraph that Ukrainians “seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.”

U.S. SPOKESPERSON DODGES QUESTION ON ISRAEL’S MAP

During a press briefing on 3 September, US State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller dodged a reporter’s question about the erasure of the Occupied West Bank on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s map during his televised presentation on 2 September, when he showed a plan for the future of Gaza. Miller instead said the US supports a two-state solution to the 76-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Palestinians and their allies view Netanyahu’s presentation as Israel’s declaration that it has annexed the West Bank. The fact the US is mute on this point is being taken as a form of tacit approval.

Israel is the United States’ biggest foreign-aid recipient. US support for Tel Aviv’s destruction of Gaza isn’t a secret, either, as the US has deployed arms, military intelligence and troops in Gaza.

Continued……So, it’s no surprise Miller dodged questions that, if answered, could implicate Israel as well as the US in the destruction of Gaza and casualties ranging from more than 40,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, to as much as 186,000 as of early July, according to a Lancet medical-journal report. 

In July, the International Court of Justice ruled the Israeli occupation unlawful, ordered the evacuation of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called for reparations to Palestinians, and said states are not obligated to not recognise the occupation.

Video: @statedept