Jean Wynter-Milliner
The People of African descent in Limon, Costa Rica (Central America) know who they are. Somos Afro-Caribeños, and very happy to be so!
Patricia Manuel
Read the response from the Mexican guy on the site comments! This the best explanation there is! They are not Black they are Afrocentric! Black is a term the white man labeled slaves and anyone with African blood as Black to categorize us as evil dark and inferior!
Nathalie Bruno
Then they will suffer
Dewey Boyd
How is that possible when all you have to do is See Yourself
Kwame Isma
Unfortunately the same thing can be found in other countries in pacific and South America.
A’isha Zaher
Color has become such an issue in this world. Can’t people just live and let live?
Eugene Thomas
That’s why some don’t realize their being discriminated against.
Lindo Mbathason
Thanks for a wonderful article. Such articles really make me and many others here in Africa to realize how much people fail to accept their blackness. This doesn’t only pose a challenge to their parents to teach them self-love but also to us to be proud Africans so that they don’t see black as inferior when they happen to look away from the media their fed with everyday. I am black but this isn’t something I think about a lot because I have been black all my life and will always be. I know and respect those different from me because we live in a world of difference in which through embracing the difference in us we live in peace. I was so privileged late last year having an opportunity to write a letter to student of a private school in Granada through a friend who was there during the celebration, they were celebrating one of their colorful national days. I felt very honoured to write from Africa to the people whom the connection with is ancestry. I cried tears. Such connection of African schools and most schools from countries with strong African ancestry, it would be so uplifting to children like those in Brazil.
Fred Murtz
Brazil is the worlds largest and most successful mind control experiment! How can you keep 45 million Black folks in abject poverty and isolated from the real world! 45 million yet we hear of no modern day leaders, inventors, teachers, scholars, freedom fighters, politicians or major activists since slavery! How could that be possible!
Richard Gaskin
@ Phillipina – Kenyan attitude sounds similar to Barbados. Different, not superior and not as physically strong, etc…
Neville Stanley Paynter
I was born in Africa. I am an African! And even more important for me, I am a South African.
Neville Stanley Paynter
“We are in struggle because we value life and love all humanity. The liberated South Africa we envision is one in which all our people, both black and white, will be one to the other, brother and sister. We see being born a united South African nation of equal compatriots, enriched by the diversity of the colour and culture of the citizens who make up the whole.” ~ Nelson Mandela in a statement to the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland, 2 July 1990
Neville Stanley Paynter
@Tina. Racism and healing is not just a black or white thing. It’s a human problem. There are white racists, there are black racists. There are whites who also need to to be healed. And there are people who are not hurt by racism but victims of other crimes: rape, sexual assault, unfaithful spouse, and many other crimes. Even being unloved by a father or mother. That also needs healing. That hurt generates hate and hate is destructive, not just to the victim but those around them too.
When last did you sing the hymn “Amazing Grace” The person who wrote that hymn, John Newton, was a slave trader and he had to face what he had done to Africans in the past.
Yes, you might well want racists to burn in hell. Racists who are unrepentant, black or white, will burn in hell. But whether we like it or not, those who repent and respond to the love of Jesus, will be with him in heaven one day, not just racists, but rapists and murderers.
You are hurting right now. Every word you speak comes from pain. I can hear it loud and clear. And you can change that.
Tina Lema
How dare u talk about healing why do not your fellow white racists be healed then? good, if u believe in Jesus believe that all those racists r burn in hell.
Soulful Rebel
God for them! Just live like a human being without any conforms…
Neville Stanley Paynter
Anyway, I must get ready for Church. God bless you all from South Africa.
Neville Stanley Paynter
One of my concerns is that we have culture specific organizations like AfricanGlobe, Al Jazeera and also white supremacist groups that keep on highlighting problems that are actually causing more problems rather than solving them. They look at only the negatives and what suits their agenda and ignore the news of any kind of reconciliation.
One of the things I like about your President is that he is an American first and he is working for all Americans.
Neville Stanley Paynter
THAT IS WRONG!!!!! No person should be judged on the color of her skin. On the other hand you would be valuable in Africa.
But that is what is happening to white S. Africans. They can no longer find work here even with high qualifications and they go overseas and they and their skills are welcomed there. It’s crazy. And S. Africa NEEDS highly qualified people.
Phillipina FwaKishau
I have a masters degree from here in Canada and yet I have not had a job in 9 years. Even those who interviewed me were less qualified than me…I learned French but it did not help. I am too Black. I have just finished my autobiography and hope to return to Africa….Kenya…soon. At least my children get free education even in college it is 80% subsidized because I am treated as a “low” income earner.
Neville Stanley Paynter
As I mentioned, my passion is the rehabilitation of prisoners, and I have served time in prison myself (2000 – 2003) Last June I attended a Prison Ministry Conference and one of the main themes is “Hurting people hurt people” and that applies to most of our offenders. We need to find ways of healing those hurts.
Can I share a story. In 1996 there was a gang that attacked a farm house. They were on a drug binge. They broke in through a bathroom window while the occupants were having supper. The gangsters were Coloured the occupants White so it became an obvious racist thing. One of the gangsters took a young woman guest into the bathroom and raped her. Then the leader of the gang ordered all the occupants to be killed. The rapist took the woman back to the bathroom, bashed her head with a pot and then stabbed her to death. He walked down the passage and wrote a message with her blood on the walls.
This guy attended a Kairos Prison Ministry weekend in 2007 and he was shown the love of Jesus through the team members. He is a different guy today. His racial hate is gone. He hugs me and calls me brother. He has been through a healing process.
Neville Stanley Paynter
I am linked to the facebook page of my high school, Pinetown High. Many of my classmates from the class of 1967 live in the UK, Australia, Canada and some in the USA. Lack of employment opportunities, especially lack of promotion because of AA and high crime rate are the usual reasons. I myself am unemployed and cannot get work. I have many skills in rehabilitation of prisoners and we desperately need rehabilitators, but I am too white and male.
There is a case in court at the moment where a Lieutenant Colonel Renate Barnard in the Police Service applied three times for a promotional post and was refused because of AA constraints. The post is still not filled because there is no other suitable candidate.
Phillipina FwaKishau
Yes..if S. African Whites want change, they also must change. That sense of entitlement must go. As for South African Blacks, their violence and disregard for life must change too. They are quick to engage in violence on others without care or conscience. I almost hate S. Africa just like USA, lands where people can be killed on the street, or any place because a few people do not see gangsterism as not being okay or normal. Many of them think that people in other countries live that way.
Neville Stanley Paynter
I fully agree with you. It’s the hurt and pain of the past that generates the attitudes of the present. I see it in working with prisoners and gangsters. Hurting people hurt people. We need strong leaders who can make a stand and move forward together. We need to be reaching out to each other. And we all need to be benefiting.
Phillipina FwaKishau
Where are White S. Africans going? Life in Africa is unequaled…most business people that move out have serious social problems…..dealing with closed societies.
Neville Stanley Paynter
This is not happening in South Africa. In fact businesses are closing down and moving out. There are very strong affirmative action laws that insist that black Africans must be in the majority of management and jobs yet there is no longer protection on the other side for the white minority of South Africans (11%) and also the Cape Coloured (11%) It’s OK to have 100% black ownership or staffing.
We also have extremely strong Unions (COSATU) who has strong influence on the job market. Right now there are strategic mines that are closing down rather than face continuing strike action. Two or three years ago Wallmart wanted to open up here, COSATU blocked it.
We are also very over-friendly with China. And China is VERY happy with that.
Phillipina FwaKishau
Racism is a problem when it becomes the criteria for earning economic privileges. In S.Africa you now have reverse racism and you may continue that way until the country’s resources are shared more equitably. When whites were privileged they enjoyed those privileges without caring about Black people in the slums, without caring about the poor wages and isolation of people without any government services. It is unfortunate that history repeats itself. Mandela was a White peoples’ President…he guaranteed white people’s privileges and made little changes in the lives of Black people. That society has to adjust and share the land or else sink into worse social disturbances than Zimbabwe. I am not racist…..I call a spade a SPADE!
Neville Stanley Paynter
I know I am a white South African talking about black issues and I am probably perceived as racist in my thinking. But my perception is that the focus on racial identity within a country that has different races only causes more friction and problems. Here in South Africa we need to be SOUTH AFRICANS. In the USA you need to be AMERICANS. I know this is complicated because we are all dealing with a past filled with hurt and pain and also culture. In the nineties when we had Nelson Mandela as our President we used the term Rainbow Nation and it was great. Unfortunately we are returning to racialism (different to racism) and to me this is a worry.
Phillipina FwaKishau
Have you observed that companies are closing in the west and moving to Africa? DeBeers is moving to Botswana, General Electric is opening a branch in Ethiopia as is Bill Gates and Microsoft, Arabs are moving their wealth to Mauritania, Kenya and West Africa. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique and other countries have seen increases in White populations. Since the Nibiru fear emerged, many have plans to relocate to Morocco, Kenya, S.Africa, Zambia, Lesotho and Botswana.
Neville Stanley Paynter
There’s a very interesting book “The Number” written by Johnny Steinberg. It deals primarily with research into the “Number” gangsters in prison but also deals with the issues of the forced removals when “Cape Coloureds” were moved to Coloured areas and white areas created for whites only. (In Cape Town and surrounding areas) For me quite an eye opener in seeing the hurt and pain and this seems to be the route cause of much of our present gangsterism, crime and the one of am most interested in, dysfunctional families.
Neville Stanley Paynter
I am interested in your comment “Smart Whites have been migrating to Africa in the past 5 years. That is the place to be in future.” Can you lead me to some research on this? Because this does not seem to be the case in South Africa. I am very interested.
Amen K. Rahh
There is a difference between Race and Racism. Racism is the economic empowering of one Race over another. Look at every serious act of racism in the U.S., and you find it linked to some economic gains for Whites.
Ze Maria
There is a lot of denial going on but things have changed and are changing for the better… we are starting to see some positive black Brazilians as role models and people speaking up and identifying themselves as blacks, afro-Brazilians and the such…
Phillipina FwaKishau
Skin colour has always mattered in Africa…light vs dark skinned people but we love each other…opposites attract. In USA race became a negative thing because it became a determining factor for economic success or failure, as a means to control vulnerable groups of the society, and to justify the manipulation of these groups in whichever way that those in power chose to. Or to ignore them totally so that they stagnated in poverty and illiteracy. Living in such conditions gave rise to violent prone people with little value for each other’s lives, crimes, drug abuse, and in general, hopelessness and lack of a sense of direction, which in turn led to police brutality and incarceration and broken families. The most unfortunate thing is that even those who live in the deprived ghettos of Europe, Haiti, Johannesburg and USA, still think that they are superior to other Africans!! Its all in their minds. Smart Whites have been migrating to Africa in the past 5 years. That is the place to be in future.
Phillipina FwaKishau
Given the negativity that the Black diaspora has been fed with for decades by the White media, I do know that they hate Africa and it inhabitants. Here in Canada I get the worst service from diaspora Blacks than from whites. Once they hear my African accent…the hate and pains of slavery just hits them and they cannot be rational. I am an educated African woman so I am well read. Our ancestors were massacred, starved to death, made to work as slaves, yet we turned out differently. Not vengeful, angry, violent prone, drama prone human beings. BTW, in Africa we lived without identifying with the whole continent or even nations. We identified with our tribes. The shameful treatment by whites was not perpetuated on TV and every Black media…which I see as a way to keep Black Americans from shedding off their shameful past. We have all been victims: Jews, Japanese war victims, British war prisoners, Chinese war prisoners etc. We should shed off some of these ancient moments and evolve to become a more hopeful people. I think those Brazilian children, like many African children, did not live being reminded of the slavery of their ancestors……the burden ended with the old generations. When I chat with Diaspora Blacks, their emotions are still clouded by thoughts of slavery that many cannot be rational. Our ancestors suffered too but we turned out differently. I wish Black America can stop making movies that show Black people in demeaning roles. They should only show movies where Black people are empowered and their children are successful. They should ban rap music and its extolling of violence which has captured the minds of our youth and they now fill so many jails.
Phillipina FwaKishau
I agree…I grew up in Kenya after independence. Bear in mind that most African countries with the exception of Zimbabwe, South Africa and a few others have insignificant white populations that keep to themselves. Most Africans rarely had that much contact with whites except for a few missionaries, teachers, or medical staff. They shunned or killed some of the cruel whites.
Corressa Marie
Sad!!
Lynn Godfrey
Your statement needs to be quantified; because, surely, in South Africa and Zimbabwe where you had settler colonist the difference was very well known
Lynn Godfrey
Many practice the religion, but do not relate that they eminent from the people of the religion. Many whites practice the religion too, very many. In Cuba it is the same; many whites practice Santeria, as well as black, but do not relate to being African, while they do recognize it a relic of slavery or the people of slavery.
Lynn Godfrey
A wonderful story to begin African history month, in the US that is
Phillipina FwaKishau
In Africa we did not grow up thinking that other races were superior, they were different; often physically weak, sickly etc
Kahilito Smiley DeVega
@Chris, Race was never defined primarily by skin color, but by ethnic heritage and physical features.
Confidence Chizoro Okeke
They don’t know they are African. Some do. Some still practice a version of the traditional Yoruba religion.
Chris Lovick
Because they are not black. Black ain’t real, and neither is white. Race based upon skin tone is fiction. There is one race: Human…..
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By the way, which is the most beautiful color? BLACK !!! Say it loud, Am black and proud !!!!