When Black people elsewhere are killed due to state sanctioned violence, the general Belgian response is to acknowledge anti-Black racism elsewhere & comment ‘how the anti-Black racism elsewhere is worse than here’. Somehow, Belgium’s anti-Black racism isn’t visible to many.
Have you missed the institutional anti-Black racism Black people in Belgium are exposed to on the labour market, resulting in Black people experiencing the highest unemployment rate in the country, despite the high rates of tertiary education attainment among Black people here?
Have you missed the structural discrimination of Black people on the Belgian housing market, resulting in Black people here living in appalling and exploitative conditions? The ethnic profiling of Black people in Belgium?
Have you missed the anti-Black racism in schools and tertiary education institutions, with curricula that ignore this country’s colonial past and how the remnants of it still impact Belgium today?
If you can see the anti-Blackness elsewhere, then you surely shouldn’t miss it when it rears its ugly head here too. The victims of anti-Black racism in Belgium are aplenty.
NOZIZWE DUBE 