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Dozens of deaths, thousands of looted businesses, camps for displaced people in townships that had themselves been camps under apartheid. The historical irony is staggering. Economists are unequivocal: South Africa suffers from structural unemployment exceeding 32 %, rooted in inequalities inherited from apartheid and a post-1994 redistribution that fell short of its promises. African immigrants are the scapegoats for a legitimate frustration, but one that is tragically misdirected— while the major mining and financial capital, whose leadership has remained predominantly white, continues to prosper, discreet and unscathed.
China— A Rising Power, Old Prejudices
Flashmag! Issue 172 May 2026
In April 2020, in Guangzhou, hundreds of African nationals were brutally evicted from their homes and turned away from hotels and supermarkets. Restaurants displayed signs explicitly refusing entry to Africans. The pretext was health-related— but no comparable measures were applied to Asian residents under identical epidemiological conditions. Diplomatic protests from several African governments prompted swift official statements, but no structural measures.
“ China has embraced the globalized economy. In doing so, it has— without necessarily intending to— adopted some of its racial hierarchies.”— Prof. Adams Bodomo, University of Vienna
Negrophobia is not exclusively a Western phenomenon— it is now a global one. What makes the situation particularly complex is that China is also one of the leading investors in sub-Saharan Africa. But a partner who kicks you off its streets during a pandemic simply because your skin is black is not a partner on equal footing— and negotiations must reflect that reality.
Technology and AI— Algorithms Have a Color, Too
In 2018, Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab published a damning study: facial recognition systems had error rates of less than 1 % for light-skinned men, rising to as high as 34 % for dark-skinned women.
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