Denied a job because I am black!

THE RACE QUESTION IN THE 21^ST: ARE WE [AFRICANS] THAT FRIGHTENING?

In reference to the letter you sent me a fortnight ago (which you stated I could not get a job offer because of my skin color), I have been thinking about it deeply, and this note is a result of a secondary reflection I have done on the case in question. I would be glad if this can reach as many heads of institutions (other stakeholders, esp. parents) in your country.

I find it shameful that an employer will not accept a qualified individual on the grounds that one is of black ancestry/origins, and not a native English speaker, yet better qualified still. One cannot deny all the other predications of my life merely on “blackness”. I find it intolerable to extend the legacy of Africa’s humiliation across the centuries that has conditioned the attitudes of outsiders towards we of black ancestry, thus undermining or weakening our capacity for social, economic and political resolve and resourcefulness even in these modern times.

When a system ensures that ‘blacks’ have less access to resources, material or intangible, it seeks to wound our self-regard and self-respect for it undercuts self-esteem and heightens self-indulgence and self-serving cynicism. I cannot share the convictions, doctrines and attitudes of such an oppressive structure – for doing do undermines my economic, social and political development despite the existence of basic infrastructures, institutions and lingua franca. Whilst I agree that the complexity and ambivalence of a traditional African past needs to be frankly acknowledged, not only recognizing the good emanating from it, but also the sad happenings (slave trade, colonialism, oppression of women, apartheid …). Our history as black people is a history of effort, successes and trial, comparable with that of any other people.

The intolerant attitude assumed by most would-be-employers is an accentuation of the victim syndrome and is retrogressive and constricting. “White skin” does not increase the worth of the conditional self – for that is deep-seated psychological confusion and hypersensitivity to skin color. The body is sacred and beauty is more than skin deep, true beauty is rooted in the depth of our being. Security in being as an ontological counterweight to existential insecurity confers enduring peace, personally and interpersonally, ensuring an active presence in the world, essentially in relation to others, an opening out to the world, contact and participation with others. By denying us equal access to opportunities, you are saying ‘black’ people do not matter, and do not exist in your world, BUT all I want to restore is our black self-respect in which whiteness is not a fundamental point of reference, in fact where it is not a point of reference at ALL. I am who I am: I do not need to prove my humanity to anybody nor do I need to affirm my worth as a person either defensively or offensively, but I ought to do that simply positively, for my worth as a person is not derivative.

As soon as we awaken to being as intrinsic value, we live a life of spiritual and cultural quality that makes it possible to work towards the common good. In the end, I pose these questions: Why do people develop and transmit notions that encourage hostility (however subtle) such as that people from different racial origins should be quarantined to their own backyards? (Africa for Africans, but the others are welcome, and when it comes to Asia, it is only for those of a like color!) Why do people take pride in exclusive group identity at the expense, sometimes violently, of other groups or nation building?