African youth killed in Delhi: Why is assaulting black people a lesser crime?

For months rape was the dubious distinction for India. Now, it has been joined by another sinister cousin. The cold blooded immensely senseless killing of an African teacher in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area only underscores our inner prejudice for colour and against it. These idiot people who beat him up did so because they felt they could do it and get away with it. The guy was blacker than them. Hence inferior.The system would understand. The same message that skinfair manufacturers and film stars who peddle these creams send out. [caption id=“attachment_2427162” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] Black deeds. Blackguards. Black money. Black people. Same difference. For racism it is tough to beat us. We have made it an art form. We club all Africans into drug dealers and this miscarriage of social justice was once spearheaded by a Minister of the Aam Aadmi party who entered the home of four Ugandan women without any warrant. The Gestapo is well, alive and living in Delhi, open the door. If I was African I’d be scared to live in India. Racism spawns bigotry and prejudice. India’s historical fractures of caste, colour and creed, you and me, have gotten worse. We have even added the new dimension of reverse racism with the so called upper castes being outnumbered and often made to the pay for the arrogance of their flipping ancestors. North Indians look upon their fellow countrymen from the south with a conceit that is difficult to understand but it exists. Aryans and Dravidians play off against each other with a ball made of leathery contempt. Don’t even touch religion, that’s another dimension entirely. So much for our strength in diversity or is it unity? We have become so much more insular with technology when we should actually have been enlightened by it. We all gasp with agony and then shrug it off, it is just a story in the papers unless it happens too close to home. Then we scream a bit and carry on. Not even a fraction of a percent of 1.2 billion people cares enough for each such incident. Like with an aircraft that crashes, it is a series of little errors that create that firecracker string and lead to the crash. We have started our errors. I’ll tell you a sad story. My friend married an Afro American nuclear physicist. But he did not tell his parents. When they saw her at the airport they reeled with shock. Mum got into bed and wailed. On the fourth day the couple left as the neighbours sniggered and they never came back. Yep, that’s how crappy we are. That Congolese teacher didn’t deserve this. No one does. Wake up to those errors, use the social platforms to talk about these things, that boy’s death is a lot more symptom of the illness in the body public than you wish to think. That cancer will spread.