IMAGINE BLACK EUROPE
presents
EmbarRACEments
African Diaspora and Afrophobia in Italy
Thursday September 29, 2022, 12:30-1:45 pm
Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center, SDSU
While Italians supported the Black Lives Matter movement that was born in the United States, many remain blind to the rampant racism in their own society. In Italy there is excessive fear and great aversion to Africans, a condition which the UN and EU refer to as “Afrophobia.” This is a systemic, endemic phenomenon with multiple origins that contributes to a negative representation and perception of Africa. This view is at the root of racism in Italy, a racism that often expresses itself in the banality of people’s everyday language, micro-aggressions, and hypersexualized approaches toward women.
This presentation includes readings from Kossi Komla-Ebri’s two volumes of personal, ironically humorous anecdotes, translated in English as EmbarRACEments: Daily Embarrassments in Black and White . . . and Color (2019), focusing on issues of inclusivity, racism, and cultural conflict. EmbarRACEments tells the embarrassment of difference, the discomfort related to the Other, the culturally different, and, especially, the visibly different.
Abstract.
AFROPHOBIA: Racism toward Black Africans in Italy
Kossi A. KOMLA-EBRI
While Italians supported the Black Lives Matter movement that was born in the United
States, many remain blind to the rampant racism in their own society. In Italy there is
an "excessive fear" and great aversion to Africans, a condition which the UN and EU
refer to as “Afrophobia.” This is a systemic, endemic phenomenon with multiple
origins that contributes to a negative representation and perception of Africa. This view
is at the root of racism in Italy.
In the Italian case it is important to highlight the legacy, which has emerged with the
current phenomenon of migration, of a distorted, undervalued colonial past that is still
misrecognized and/or denied by a good portion of Italians.
This perception affects the relationship that Italians have with the children of Africa
and results in a racism, unfortunately often promoted by politicians, that expresses
itself in the banality of people's everyday language, micro-aggressions, and
hypersexualized approaches toward women.
This presentation analyzes the institutional discriminatory attitude towards Afrodescendants in Italy, and for those born in immigration, the clear denial of their full access to citizenship rights that follows. It also explores the inevitable issues related to
the sense of belonging that affect the identity growth of a group of people in a country
that still associates skin color with the status of “foreig
