Is racism real? Yes. I don't need to live in America or the UK to know this. I guess I was kind of oblivious when I was younger until I went to a particular south American country and they quarantined my teammates and I for days because they thought we had malaria even after we have presented the necessary health documents. They made us take compulsory tests that people from other western countries didn't haven't to. And this is South America. Yes, the threat was real, but the stunt they pulled was way over the threat. I have had white people on some social network platforms I was/am on treat people racial minorities differently and as inferior.
Should racism be seen everywhere? No. It's sad though because if one wants to kill a goat, just about any rope will do. So, if you want to see racism, you will see it everywhere. Which is why I've developed the two-fold test: 1. Are people of a particular race being treated differently here? 2. Is the reason for their differential treatment their race? On the basis, I don't think it's racist when movies or works of art do not include people of different races. Artists have license to do whatever they want with their work as long as it doesn't preach a wrong message and I'll barely notice it. Their only crime is that their work wouldn't be realistic enough given the circumstances and even that isn't something that is worth me wailing over. However, when it becomes evident that the artist went out of his way to make sure that people of a different race isn't represented (well) where they should be...
Can minorities be discriminatory, too? Yes. In fact, sometimes I'm tempted to think that black people would be more racist than white people. A white person braids her hair or takes on an Igbo name and black people scream cultural appropriation. Meanwhile, we are all here wearing long Brazilian hair and make up and suit. It's important to not become that which you fight against. Two wrongs don't make a right. You feel marginalized in the society and you go and do the same thing you accuse people of? Sighs . You say that Hollywood doesn't represent the black community enough but you go ahead and make all black movies and TV series (set in places where you have people different races). I'm not seeing the math add up. And that's without looking inward at how we treat ourselves, grading people from some places as second class citizens even though we have the same skin color.
I have found that when this kind of conversation goes on, we usually omit a crucial part of the equation:
You ask black people to go out and do their own thing and carve their own niche if they aren't satisfied with the status quo and that is assuming that all things are equal...but they aren't. It's like telling women to go out there and make the society matriarchal if they aren't okay with the patriarchy we currently have.
Somebody currently has that power now and they won't fold their hands and watch you try to compete with them, They are going to use that power to up their game/frustrate the shit out of you.
Dangote isn't the first ingenious Nigerian businessman. He isn't the first one who had the ideas he is manifesting now, he isn't even the first to start working on them. But I dare think he had help along the way that these other people didn't have because of his family/ethnic status. (White) Hollywood has had years of getting to where it is now, has amassed wealth and influence that the average black person looking to start the same thing can't even get sniff of. How do you expect them to do the same thing that these other people are doing (at the same rate)? Yes, sometimes we don't help ourselves, we are blind to the fact that we should get together instead of striking out on our own, but the odds are already stacked against us.
Finally, I think we are doing something about it. We are forming and raising consciousness. A consciousness to do better than our predecessors.