Black Arab women are drawing inspiration from global anti-racism protests to fight back against long-standing discrimination and Middle Eastern beauty standards that favor light skin and straight hair.
Black Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, who descend from sub-Saharan Africans, suffer social marginalization and unequal job prospects, and are often subjected to racist abuse and derogatory portrayals in the media.
Black women, some of whom are African migrants, suffer a double discrimination, activists say.
“The standard of beauty in our society is to be white,” said Khawla Ksiksi, a feminist and anti-racism activist who cofounded the Voices of Black Tunisian Women group.
“Black women are pressured to straighten their hair, get rid of their curls and to whiten their skin in order to be accepted by society and fit in by its standards,” Ksiksi said.
Emboldened by the global Black Lives Matter movement, she said black Arab women wanted to highlight the day-to-day racial prejudice and abuse they face in a region where there is widespread denial about the issue.
Somali-Yemeni activist Amna Ali founded the Black Arabs Collective this month, an Instagram platform that aims to raise awareness about race and racism in the region.
She recalled watching advertisements for whitening cream on TV showing women growing happier as their complexion gradually became lighter.
“It’s so damaging to brown and Black girls that watch that and think my skin color is bad and if it’s lighter, it’s better,” she said.
A surge of global criticism about whitening creams has forced brands to react. Johnson & Johnson on Friday said that it would stop selling its range of such products in Asia and the Middle East.
In Tunisia, leading sanitary pad brand Nana caused outrage on social media after sharing a post on June 9 meant to celebrate diversity that featured a white, blue-eyed model painted in different skin-tone shades. It swiftly replaced the controversial post.
“The use of blackface for me further indicates that black women are perceived as not beautiful,” Ksiksi said. “[Brands] would rather use the image of a white woman and paint her face.”
Black Arab women are frequently taunted over stereotypes that they have high sex drives, she said.
In Tunisia, as elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East, they are also disproportionately poor and suffer worse job prospects as well as increased sexual harassment at the hand of employers, or while out in the street.
“Economically and socially black women are at the bottom of the pyramid. So if someone harasses a black woman, he knows she has no connections ... and this makes it easier for her to be harassed,” Ksiksi said.
Tunisia became the first Arab country in October 2018 to criminalize racial discrimination, with the first conviction under the law taking place in February last year.
However, from Egypt to the Palestinian territories, deep-rooted racist views are coming under attack.
Earlier this month, Egyptian actor and singer Mohamed Ramadan called out a woman who commented on a photograph of his son to say it was unfortunate the boy turned out black like his father instead of inheriting his mother’s lighter skin.
“I’m proud of my color ... and I’m happy my children will grow up to be anti-racism,” Ramadan wrote on his Facebook page.
In a viral Instagram video, Palestinian actress Maryam Abu Khaled said she hoped future generations would not endure the anti-black comments she grew up hearing, such as parents warning their children to avoid the sun so they would not look like her.
“People are starting to understand that ‘okay, maybe now I should be more socially aware of my anti-blackness,’” she said. “This is a huge change from the race conversation completely not existing in the Arab world to people now calling each other out,” Ali said.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on several Russian power and energy facilities forced capacity reduction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and set a fuel export terminal in Ust-Luga on fire, Russian officials said yesterday. A drone attack on the Kursk nuclear plant, not far from the border with Ukraine, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at unit three of the plant, the plant’s press service said. There were no injuries and a fire sparked by the attack was promptly extinguished, the plant said. Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding
RSS