Afrophobia is a specific, intense prejudice and violence targeted specifically at Black individuals of African descent, particularly in the context of South Africa. While xenophobia can affect anyone from a different country, Afrophobia often acts as a specific, racialised scapegoating of fellow Africans. In a tragic twist of irony, the black-on-black violence shows how former victims of apartheid have themselves metamorphosed into monsters baying for the blood of “those Africans”, as their victims are derisively called. An illegal white immigrant may live in South Africa ‘till kingdom come’, and nobody would bother to ask for his papers while his Black African counterpart is hounded like a bush rat.
Afrophobia!, By Wole Olaoye
