China in Denial About it's Race Problem: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_9720.shtml China: Embracing Africa, But Not Africans: http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/china-embracing-africa-but-not-africans/ Africans in China In a 2014 Al Jazeera report on African migrants in Guangzhou, journalist Jennifer Marsh highlighted the plight of African migrants trying to achieve their own Chinese dream in one of China’s most populated southern cities. Marsh writes “While the central government publicly welcomes the migrants, recent draconian visa legislation has sent a clear signal: Africans in China – even highly prosperous, educated economic contributors – are not welcome.” The Al Jazeera journalist’s story highlights the story of Cellou Toure, a Malian migrant whose small business suffered because of his inability to get a Chinese visa despite being married to a Chinese woman and having three Malian-Chinese children. Many Africans view situations like Toure’s as the hypocrisy of the Chinese government’s goodwill towards Africa, as African migrants witness firsthand the business success of Westerners who marry Chinese women and are allowed prosper legally in small and medium enterprises under the protection of the law. All one has to do is scour the internet under the keywords, “Chinese prejudice against Africans in China” to discover a litany of blogs and articles on the experiences on young African migrants, students and travelers, many of whom are proficient in Mandarin, as they recount their experiences in China. In A Minority in the Middle Kingdom: My Experience Being Black in China former African-American expat, Marketus Presswood witnessed the racially charged atmosphere in his Chinese school and classroom, finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to his teaching jobs as an influx of white Westerners flooded the Chinese education market in the early 2000s. Presswood remembered overhearing one of his students remarking, “I don’t want to look at his black face all night.” As a former African-American expat living in China over a period of three years, I can remember horrible stories of racism experienced by other expats of African descent. One of the worst involved a brilliant young medical student from Guinea Bissau who studied Mandarin and medicine in the coastal city of Nanjing. This young medical student was fluent in Chinese and when she reported to a local Chinese hospital to do her residency and training, many of the Chinese patients would not allow her to touch them or treat them because she was African. These stories and many others highlight the barriers and racial stereotypes that many mainland Chinese people harbor against people of African descent. Much of the problem has to do with Chinese people’s ignorance of Africa, African cultures, and African history, with most Chinese people judging Africans based on the period of European enslavement and the continent’s subsequent history. Another part of the problem is China’s centuries old “white skin” beauty standards, which act as a psychological and generational barrier that views darker skinned individuals as less civilized and unworthy of being called beautiful. In China, one of the most common racial stereotypes about people of African descent is that they all like to eat chicken and watermelon. This particular stereotype hails from the American south during the post- enslavement period, and has nothing to do with other Africans in the African diaspora, highlighting the Chinese lack of understanding of Africa. Please also Subscribe to Winner Laowai in China: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_pp5d613Evsh2RHVfYfSdQ Please Like and Subscribe Hit me on the Twit: https://twitter.com/chamaflauge2278 My Blogger: http://loserlaowai.blogspot.jp/

• published: 10 Dec 2015
• views: 2262