Brigham Young University Provo, UT
Department of French and Italian
and
Department of Africana Studies
present
Thursday, September 22, 2022,
11:00-12:30
238 Herald R. Clark Building (HRCB)
Kossi Komla-Ebri
Afrophobia: Blackness in Italy
Abstract.
Afrophobia:Blackness in Italy
Kossi 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 “foreigner.”
