WHITE BEFORE BLACK

Over centuries, Africans, most especially West Africans have adopted a ‘culture of migration’ functioning as a strategy to cope with local poverty, drought, education or conflict in hopes of a better life. This is especially true for the African in Ukraine who are either black Ukrainians, immigrants or international students from all over Africa who had relocated to Ukraine.

White before Black were the unspoken words at the Ukraine borders. Exiting Ukraine during this crisis was likened to a popular tv series ‘Squid Games’ with Ukrainians and Europeans at the top of the hierarchy, Indians and people from the Middle East in the middle and Africans at the bottom.

Vehicles which had been provided by the state to carry ‘All’ women and children to safety made an exempt to African women and children as at the borders, African women and children were left stranded as the border guards sized them down and wordlessly said ‘white before black’. Videos circulating on social media taken at the borders where blacks were being shoved off vehicles and replaced by animals, and vehicles left with empty seats when African women and children were left stranded at the borders and left to wait for the Ukrainians and their pets to reach safety first.

What do we call Africans Violated, beaten, and shoved to the back of the line by the border guards? A reminder  of racial superiority, an everyday struggle of our African brothers abroad, or a condoned act that has become a norm?

Let us fight for a world where ‘black before white’ is not a slang because at the end of the day, they are all just colors.