Experts are raising concerns that even if the current wave of Black Lives Matter movements manages to achieve something, though highly unlikely, Africans lives will still not matter.
The concerns raised stem from the fact that Black lives and African lives are not the same thing, and while the former has had its fair share of discrimination in the white world, the latter has not even had the opportunity to see the white world and there is a 400 year gap between them.
So different are the two groups to the extent that a Black Americans are close to being white than they are to being African, something that explains why African lives may never matter in the near future. “Even Black Americans said no to being referred to as African American long time ago. Even if they are black, they are still Americans, not Africans. All blacks are not equal.”
One protestor in New York said that he only concerned about the welfare of all Americans, and not all black people. “I am not really into this whole black thing. I just want all Americans to be treated the same. Sometimes later we cannot talk about African children who are being exploited in Congo, but it’s just not now. Those are serious challenges which maybe we can look into later. Let’s focus on Black Americans for now.”
Even Africans who have migrated to the US say that there is a chaste order which they have to observe. A Nigerian from Kano living in Texas said that despite his education (three Master’s degree and two doctorates), he is still perceived as one having the intelligence of a fruit fly. “It is the white person first, then brown, dogs, Black Americans, Cats, the Internet, then Africans. It doesn’t what else you have – that is the order.”
It is a similar case in Europe where African rights rank slightly lower than pets, while in China, the term African does not even exist.
Surprisingly, even white people in Africa – countries such as Algeria, have constantly expressed a desire to drop the term African or the reference to North Africa.
