Black people who lived in China in the 80s were subjected to racial abuse by Chinese particularly Chinese women, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur, Head of Local Government Service has revealed.
Recounting his experience in China in the 80s, Dr. Ato Arthur, who is a former Central Regional Minister, said Black people in China at the time were discriminated against and called names by Chinese. He recalled that the Chinese particularly Chinese women labeled them as “black devils” and inquired to know whether their darkened skins were as a result of excessive dirt.
Dr. Ato Arthur, who described his stay in the Asian country at the time as tough, added that the Chinese people considered the Black people as low class socially hence, did not associate themselves with Black people and treated them with disdain.
The verbal abuse, he recounted, continued until when they learnt the Chinese language and started defending themselves against such racial abuses.
“It was tough at the time in China. In 1984, you went to China at that time, Chinese would call you black devil. Then they want to feel whether this black is dirt. Those were the days I can tell you it was serious. When we were able to understand the language, we also starting calling them yellow devil. Those days in China were very tough,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM.
He added “You cannot be close to Chinese because you were black. It wasn’t easy. Fortunately for me, I was in Guangzhou and it was one of the most opened cities. As a black man, you can’t be closed to your classmates who were ladies. They were looking at the social structure; the white is up there, the yellow in between and you black down, how can you be close to someone who is above you? A yellow woman saw herself as being above black man. So you can’t get close to them”.
