Voicing ‘solidarity’ against US racism, Arabs expose scourge at home
Abu Yahya watches protests in Minneapolis rage on his mobile and shakes his head in amazement.
“Here they say, ‘We aren’t racist,’ that we are all Arabs and Muslims, until they see my skin,” says the Sudanese refugee in Amman, Jordan. “Then they call me ‘slave.’”
“Just as there’s an awakening in America, it’s time for our society to wake up.”
The protests following the police killing of George Floyd that are shifting perceptions in the United States have also sparked a growing awareness that even here – in a region that has experienced invasion, colonialism, oppression, and war – there is a need to come to terms with its own past of colorism and racism.
Yet the growing debate in the Arab world about attitudes toward race was kicked off not by police brutality or
HistoryMedia lensWords countShift in attitudes
