Let’s Talk About Race: 5 Regional Women Share Their Experience With Racism
What has the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed, meant for Black women in the Middle East and beyond? We ask five female voices to share their lived experiences of racism and their personal journeys over the past 12 months
May 2021 marks a year since the very public death of George Floyd, the traumatic eight minutes and 46 seconds of his passing shared millions of times on social media, and those heartbreaking final words of “I can’t breathe” becoming a call to action that would see unprecedented anti-racism protests worldwide. As the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota filled with supporters of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, their message quickly spread and people across the globe began calling out the racism in their own countries and communities.
Closer to home, Black women also began to dissect attitudes to anti-blackness, forming alliances to create a united voice to call out racism, and build platforms to educate those wanting to learn about the many injustices and micro-aggressions the Black community face. Women of colour from the region and beyond are using their lived experience and gained knowledge to tackle and raise awareness around racism in all its nuanced forms. Here, Bazaar lends our pages to some of these voices, to learn, understand and show our solidarity…
Amna Hamdto
Make-up artist, influencer and fashion designer Amna Hamdto is Sudanese. She was born in Saudi Arabia and lived in Sudan before moving to Abu Dhabi last March to concentrate on her modest womenswear line, Amnaswardsrobe. She uses her social platforms to promote Black women in the fashion and beauty industry @amna.hamdto @amnaswardsrobe
When I heard about George Floyd’s death, it was obvious to me, and probably to every Black person in the world, that this was a case of racism – alongside the misuse of power. It was an inhumane act, and even now, a very deeply sad memory for me.
As an influencer, I started using my social-media platforms to speak up against racism, bringing injustices to my audience’s attention – showing them that there are people in the world that aren’t being treated well purely based on their skin colour – and I know how that feels.
I remember first facing racism when I was a child and visiting my father during school summer vacations – we would to go to the parks on the weekends, and every time we faced a different situation. One day a woman called the police because my kid brother was playing with her son and the two boys had some sort of fight. It was something so normal, but instead of talking to them both and trying to spread peace, she tried to report my brother, while calling us names.
And when I started my journey as a public figure, I actually heard a lady saying, “Even Sudanese have fashionistas,” as if we’re not allowed, or able, to be what we want.
And it comes from within the beauty industry too. As Black influencers, we are often sidelined by beauty brands and feature less in their campaigns. I do feel that cosmetic brands are making more of an effort in their marketing, but most skincare brands only feature white women in their campaigns, and also assume their audience and consumer is white. At the majority of the big beauty companies, all the key decision-makers are white, which invariably informs what ends up on advertising material.
I believe we should fight for equal opportunities, regardless of your colour, you should help to create a path to represent the Black community in every industry so young Black people can find opportunities everywhere in the future.
The BLM movement has inspired me to work hard, I want to show that as African-Arabs we are very talented because our cultural background plays a big role in our creativity.
The future is all about the young people – we can’t say George Floyd’s death has changed the world, but we can say it woke some people up, maybe enough that every parent educates their children about racism, so we can have a new generation that is full of peace.
Amna Ali
Amna Ali lives in Dubai and is of Somali-Yemeni heritage. She is an activist and entrepreneur who set up The Black Arabs Collective in June 2020 in response to George Floyd’s murder. The platform provides a space for Black Arabs in the region to speak, listen, learn, collaborate, and combat the injustices they face @blackarabscollective
I remember first seeing a written post on Instagram about George Floyd, but within two hours, my entire feed was completely flooded with that dreadful video. I couldn’t watch it to completion for weeks, it just filled me with overwhelming pain for him, for his family and for the community as a whole. I remember for weeks after, I felt guilty for feeling joy, for being able to smile and exist – because I was here, I was safe and I was alive and I couldn’t be out in the streets fighting for justice. But then, for the first time in my life, I witnessed a conversation about race being had in the Arab world.
I felt obligated to commemorate this moment and created The Black Arabs Collective – a platform serving to bring to light the trajectory of the Afro-Arab community. While the experiences are different from those of the Black community in the west, Black Arabs face their own set of social and political challenges.
I was born in the Arab world and I’ve dealt with a lot of racism, from being a child and told I was ugly because I was Black, to being a working professional and being told that I’ll never grow professionally because I’m not a ‘white’ passport holder – referring to a Western or a European nationality.
The last year has been a traumatising time but also such a healing experience – being able to understand that I wasn’t alone, being able to relate to another person on issues I have encountered day-to-day after 30 years. The BLM protests following the murder of George Floyd helped me work up the courage to take matters into my own hands and spearhead a movement in the Arab world. While that educational portion of our work is still ongoing, the collective has grown into a community that gives people a voice and a safe space to share our lived experiences through (virtual) community events in order to encourage, cultivate and create social reform.
I’ve learned a lot myself, I studied the history of Black activists and the American civil-rights movement, and read many books including those by Black Arab writers. I believe in my heart that change will slowly come. If I didn’t believe that, I would not be doing what I’m doing.
Mon Belle
UK-born Mon Belle is of dual African and Caribbean heritage. She has lived in Dubai for 12 years and is an entrepreneur in the music and events industry. Following the death of George Floyd, she helped set up Can We Talk DXB – a UAE-based media platform dedicated to discussing Black experiences and uplifting Black voices @canwetalkdxb @wearethoseguysofficial
It’s often not the overt name-calling and direct acts of racism we all experience, it’s the everyday micro-aggressions, such as waiting in a queue for 20 minutes only for the teller to pick the person behind you, the unwarranted touching of my hair, the “you’re hot for a Black girl” comments or being boldly followed and watched around the department store by the security guards. And then, when you relay these instances to non-black friends they dismiss them by saying: “I don’t think it was meant like that”.
So, for me, the murder of George Floyd became a heartbreaking catalyst for change, as the weeks passed, overwhelming feelings of disappointment and disgust at the lack of compassion I saw and the virtue-signalling from brands and influencers added to my initial confusion and despair. It became important to create a Dubai-based platform where the Black community could come together and engage with one another, but most importantly, a support system to uplift our voices and experiences, as well as provide a source of education for all races. And so, Can We Talk DXB was launched. The platform quickly evolved into a safe space for all communities, brands and entities who wanted to be part of the conversation, it became about highlighting our wins and about supporting Black growth. Can We Talk DXB hosted its first discussion panel last June with a live and online audience, providing in-depth perspectives and the opportunity to ask questions in a way that may not have been possible in the past.
We have since launched a corporate training and awareness arm of Can We Talk DXB to work with brands to help them understand diversity, inclusion and unconscious bias within their own organisations. A year on, people know more buzz words around racism, but we need actual movement and change, we need more Black women and men to be seated in government, on academic boards, in healthcare, across law, while people in positions of privilege and power need to understand and accept why they are there.
A week ago, another Black woman made the very real statement: that the truly impactful revolution is the one taking place in our own homes, around your dinner tables and within your friend circle – breaking down problematic ideologies there is where we will see true global change.
Aziza Ali Makamé
Marketing Executive, Aziza Ali Makamé lives in London. Her mother is Arabic of Omani heritage and her father is African from Zanzibar, which means Aziza has spent a huge amount of time in these countries, straddling both cultures. She is using her lived experience as a biracial woman to educate and raise awareness around anti-Blackness and colourism @Azizamakame
I’m Arab, I’m Black, I’m a woman, I’m Muslim and I’m also British. My biggest challenge is that being dual heritage and not being ‘white’, people just don’t know where to place me – there’s an ‘otherness’ when it comes to your identity. Most people think of mixed-race as Black/white coupling, but when you’re mixed with two POC identities it gives you insight into colourism, as well as the anti-Blackness of said cultures, and makes it very hard to question the narratives that come along with cultural norms.
In Oman, for me, it was mostly micro-aggressions that I experienced. My Omani grandmother, also called Aziza, is the beauty standard [for Arab women] and every year, without fail, someone would tell me how beautiful my grandmother is with her incredibly fair skin and green eyes. In Oman, no one talks about race much, and watching TV in the Middle East back then there wasn’t much representation and still there’s a long way to go.
My mother, unknowingly in the past has done and said things that are problematic. We’re now trying to change the narrative we have about hair, and that as long as hair is healthy it is beautiful, it doesn’t need to be bone-straight and laid.
Colourisim is obviously everywhere and there’s no way that’s going to change overnight, but Afro-Arabs and Arabs with darker skintones do exist, and in fact we’re sometimes treated better in the Middle East than we are in the West, where what you see and know as Arab is usually the Kardashians who are Armenian. We need more representation in Western culture for this thinking to change. Arabs aren’t just people who come to London to spend money in Harrods and Selfridges, there is a rich culture and heritage that we have given to the world and we need to decolonise what it means to identify as an Arab.
After the death of George Floyd, it was amazing to see Arab people show solidarity and Black Arabs speaking out about anti-Blackness, in particular Palestinian actress Maryam Abu Khaled, and seeing people call out public figures such as Lebanese singer Myriam Fares who had used blackface. It started a much-needed conversation.
I’m trying to get people to understand that if you are truly an ‘ally’ that you must learn and call out racism, even when it doesn’t affect you. I’m not East Asian but I’m calling out East Asian hate because this is the only way to dismantle racism, by working together and checking our privileges.
Imani Bashir
Imani Bashir is an American writer, editor and travel journalist, who has lived in Egypt, where she met her husband Zahir Bates in 2016. She specialises in writing about race and culture for some of the world’s leading publications and has covered personal experiences including wearing the hijab as a Black Muslim, and the anxieties of raising her young Black son in the USA @sheisImaniB, sheisimanib.com
At the intersection of being Black, Muslim, and a woman, there are so many micro-aggressions I’ve encountered. Some have often used their ignorance to diminish the history of Black Muslims in America by asking questions like, “Do you know what your name means?” or “When did you convert?” These questions, I would never ever gather myself to assume of another person because it’s invasive and rude. As a Black person, there’s an automatic assumption of being lesser and people treat you as though you don’t deserve the same opportunities as everyone else, especially if you’re wearing a hijab. However, my lineage in Islam expands multiple generations, but people don’t know the history and always choose to flex some sort of superiority for their ego.
Race is a huge foundational component to being American. It is ingrained in the culture, and every facet of life manoeuvres around race, so I made an active choice to live outside of the United States to get some sort of chance at just existing. But, my family and I were unfortunately back in the U.S. due to the pandemic when I heard about George Floyd, and learning of his death and that of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery infuriated me in a way that nearly sent me to the hospital from extreme stress. It reminded me of why I left the United States in 2015, a month after Sandra Bland’s [contested arrest and controversial death in a Texas prison cell three days later]. It reminded me why I opted to give birth and raise my child outside of the United States.
I don’t think the BLM movement changed the way that people have treated me, racism and white supremacy is so ingrained in every culture and a result of colonisation that some people don’t even realise how racist they are because they believe they’re superior by default. It’s going to take a lot to truly change how we see others.
I have always called out racism, prejudice, and bias because my father was an attorney who specialised in Criminal and Constitutional law – so he taught us legally, and Islamically, that it was our duty to stand up and speak out.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s May 2021 Issue
