" Who is the waiter? Who is the doctor? Does an illegal immigrant? And the police? Everyone is here among us. We have removed? Uniform? for display as is "without prejudice added. Are only a handful of the 700,000 descendants of Africans living in Spain. Brings the difference in the skin. We see them every day but how they know? This is his story, told by themselves. Of his life under the microscope. Of their struggle against white suspicion. And his pride in being who they are. 
PHOTOS - MEMBERS JORDI
Luckson COMPERE JEAN RITA AND HER DAUGHTER still some people are surprised to see a white coat and a black doctor. "The skin color, to guide people. Acceptance is a process that takes time," says Jean Luckson, 33. He trained as a doctor in Cuba, after leaving his native Haiti. He arrived in Spain a grant from the Ministry Affairs to study for a doctorate in preventive medicine. His philosophy: "I understand that life is not just coming to a foreign country and see. We have to make things. And if we want the situation in our country, we must also go back and test what we have learned." He married a English woman (white) two years ago. They dotes on his daughter the color of coffee with milk. - Jordi Socias GALLERY HERE. recently, Marcia Santacruz a 32-year-old Colombian expansive smile, was taking a glass of wine with several English friends. All very educated. Nice people. Popped an interesting conversation sitting on the couch, when suddenly, the gathering took an unexpected turn. One of the English took a deep breath and said: "Marcia, is that you are not so black. I mean, you're not like the blacks in Africa. Not even dress like them." Surprise. Marcia is the color of chocolate. Smooth and glowing skin. Black like his father and mother. Black as their grandparents. But apparently, in Spain, clothing, and money studies determine the level of melanin. Tint the skin tone. The Afro-Colombian, who became Madrid to study a master
in Public Administration, says: "In the imagination of a black English is synonymous with domestic work. In poverty and lawlessness. In his unconscious think that there can be no black America to tell them about Sartre" . Although there.
Spain is a country not overtly racist. There is a xenophobic party with parliamentary representation. Either expressed a clear rejection to black, except by right-wing fringe groups. Ours is the rejection that sociologists call "subtle." A dull and everyday racism. Homespun. Installed in her eyes. On the classic comment: "I'm not racist, but ...". Or the clerk who clears to the first black to leave the store soon. An equally damaging racism, experts say. Specific to a country where blacks have gone from being a single element and exotic part of the same bag that is perceived with some concern: the immigrant. Here there is no Barack Obama or an Oprah Winfrey. There are too many successful references. Nor have we traveled the road of racial struggle. The black presence is recent. An explosion of the late nineties to this part. In Spain there are approximately 683,000 African descent. 1.5% of the population, just over 10% of foreigners, according to the High Council of Black Communities. The most striking is its exponential growth: in 1998, did not exceed 77,000. And only last year were born in English territory about 7,500 descendants of Africans. Estimates of this association, which advocates for the visibility of their community, are approximate. On the one hand told foreign residents in Spain from countries with black populations, and crossed the score with the percentage of African descent in those countries. These numbers have a margin of error. Fortunately, we do not have an ethnic census, the racial difference is not in the DNI. But the quantification of a minority can look through another prism. Especially if the initiative comes from the minority itself. Represents the first stone of its visibility. A fact that says: "We are a growing community. Here we are. Tenednos into account."
Because there was a time when the English (white) rubbed his eyes to see. And do not believe it. Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, writer and self-styled minister of Equatorial Guinea's government in exile, based in Madrid, arrived in Spain when his country was still a English colony. A province in Africa. The one hundred percent black. In a recent article entitled
A new reality: the Afro-, the Equatorial collected several stories of his early years in white territory. For example: "The mujerucas that in Christmas of 1965, ran in panic and frightened to see me in a village in the interior of the Levantine region, raising his hands to his head and shouting" one black, one black, Deu meu, a Negro! " [...] My classmates, I scraped the face and hands with his fingers and were surprised that there were no sooty, my first white friends whose main curiosity was to know if my wiener was also black. "
Guineans in the former colony were the first on the board. Now number just over 23,000 people. It is the third African country has brought more blacks to Spain, behind Senegal (47,000) and Nigeria (35,000). But their migration was quite different. They came to study in the metropolis. A form. Today the black community are perhaps more integrated. Cultured. With Afro second and third generation. Lucia Asue Mbomio reporter
English program in the world (BBC1), is one of them. Neighborhood speaks with an accent if you put it. She says her pimp vein. Born and raised in Alcorcón, Madrid southern town, a white mother and a father of Equatorial Guinea. Is 28 and a room in a shared flat, plastered with racial pride. From "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, the "Yes We Can" by Obama, to a rag doll brought from Cuba, white inside, black outside, or vice versa, depending on the direction in which you hang the skirt. Lucia
part of the High Council of Black Communities - "is not the typical white NGOs to blacks," he says, and a very popular group on Facebook, called
I too have sung the song conguito at school. account that small, in class, was the darling. The original note and unknown. They looked at her curiously, touched his hair afro, and that was it. Conguito suffered the song and the Cola Cao, right. But harmful racial prejudice, he says, are more recent. The bus type: "Let go, sweetheart, because you come over to my country ...". She says she could pass for London, and Paris, and Europe. "But this is hard to accept you as black and English." She was deeply irritated when he meets someone, then asked, "And you, where are you?". As if it could have been born here. As if a English-blooded English had to be, by force, white. Miquel-Angel
Essomba, a Catalan from 38 years and Cameroonian father, director of Unesco in Catalonia, was asked the same question recently, while walking in Amsterdam and was interviewed by telephone for this interview: "I go through street and, really, I do not see a face here as well. Neither I can think of to stop someone and ask, 'Hey, where are you? ". I would be looking duck face. "Amsterdam is a mixture of capitals in Europe. About 50% of its population is of foreign parents, the whites are a minority, according to the Dutch expert on racist speech Teun Van Dijk, professor at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. "In Spain, the phenomenon of immigration is more recent, Miquel-Angel Essomba continued on their walk." And for the normalization step is needed for a generation. There are things that only time heals. "
Time is
a necessary condition. But we also need contact and cooperation on an equal basis between those who perceive different. Fernando Chacón, a professor of social psychology at the University Complutense of Madrid, explains through a social experiment conducted in the U.S. in 1936. Organized a summer camp for neighborhood kids. From the beginning, the instructors divided the kids into two groups, regardless of race. It gave them distinctive. A color, a flag. Then he introduced competitive games between them. If they wanted to achieve something, had to overcome the other team. Resources were scarce. A yours or mine. Prejudice and the distance between competitors got worse. The finished assaulting a group of other facilities. There was fight. Then he took a turn in the direction of the camp. They were told the boys that there was no water. That if they should get together to dig a trench and channel the necessary good. A "cooperative game" in which all were equal and pursuing a common goal. Contact and cooperation were filing down rough edges. Gone was the rivalry. End of experiment. Fernando Chacón
added to his explanation that prejudice and discrimination are very basic processes. Of biological origin. Closely related to self-esteem and self-concept of oneself. With group membership as an extension of personality. "Those who initially considered distinct, including themselves in a higher category," said the professor. "The only way to overcome prejudice is, therefore, the reclassification
." That is, moving from being a "black child" or "migrant child", for example, "an elementary school student, without the color involves a differentiator. And that's where the contact and cooperation play a key role. Enable mutual understanding.
Mbngue Awa Cheikh, a Senegalese 36-year-old mother of three English children that their children have gone to kindergarten from three months. Grew mixed public school, among children of all colors. "I never noticed they were different. Mates whites have grown with them, seeing the difference since they started." The problems have come this year, with the change to a school where skin color was a surprise. The smallest of the daughters, nine years, returned home a few days ago and said, "Mom, what happens? I speak to other girls and I did not answer." His mother said that none of the fellow is accustomed to playing with a black. "Do not talk. The look weird."
A kindergarten teacher, accustomed to the racial mix in their classrooms, it shows clear: "Children have no prejudices." After four years, you begin to realize their differences. Whether one or the other is black, white, Latino or Asian. "But that does not affect their play or their relationships. If you grow together, in any case have trouble touching or fondling," said the teacher.
"It changes everything when is usual," says Awa Cheikh on the case of her daughter in the new school. And he speaks from experience: Awa spent 18 years in Spain. He arrived by plane, like most immigrants. Sola. Search for life. Then he started working as an intern at a house in the urbanization of the Moral, north of Madrid. Staff, in his uniform and everything. It was a time when all eyes rested on her like a ghost. In December 1991, remember, only two Senegalese women in Madrid. With it, three. In the villa where she worked gave her plate, her fork, spoon, your bathroom. Ate separately. Lived apart. Never mixed with the family. "It was like a slave," he says. Today it has turned into a social educator of Colectivo La Calle, an NGO welcomes sub-Saharan children arrived by canoe. Awa also chairs the Association of Senegalese Women. He says that the eyes of white tellers have been quieted. Note that greater tolerance. The usual stuff. His latest "swipe racial discrimination, "he adds, it suffered in a train in 2001. As he was traveling with a baby, bought a ticket in preference. He entered the car, searched his site. The lady next door (white) rose questioning," No car will have been wrong? This is preferred. "Awa said no. That she had also paid an expensive ticket. The lady could not believe. A black! Called the reviewer. And this (white) immediately requested tickets to the Senegalese. Awa refused . He said: "I do not teach my ticket until you are back again, follow the usual route, and it's my turn." intervention of a young (white) was settled there the unfortunate episode. And a black business class went from Murcia to Madrid.
This apparent normal lives with the appearance of certain disturbing facts. The statistics of the Center for Migration and Racism (Cemira) show a radicalization of racist attitudes among young people. In a survey of over 10,000 students from 13 to 19 years, 21.6% responded in 2008 that, if they depended, would throw the country "to blacks in Africa." In 1986 only answered yes to this question by 4.2%. And the trend since the mid-eighties has always been higher, but mixed.
Professor Tomas Calvo Buezas, Professor of Social Anthropology at the Complutense University and founder of Cemira, shows, however, optimistic: "The suspicion of them has not grown in proportion to their presence. And this is a positive development." Blacks have never held positions of greater ethnic rejection from the English. The podium is reserved for Gypsies and Moroccans, according to their studies. "When they had blacks in Spain," Calvo Buezas continues, "it had an image of compassion for them. A positive vision for the end of the day. They said: 'It is a poor in Africa, which arouses our sympathy." As have become more present, especially in the media, which shows entered Spain by canoe, despite being the least those who come so, his public image has begun to be negative. "
A Moussa Sidibé, a Malian of 37 years, he once asked if it was true that blacks practiced cannibalism. "images and messages that are transmitted over us, war and extreme poverty, influence the English way they see us," he says. "People think that we are savages. It is based on speeches that we are branded as criminals. And we have to go proving it is not so. "The latest report on Spain's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, issued by the Council of Europe, a fact noted with concern the Centre for Sociological Research: 60% of the population makes a synapse between the terms "immigrant" and "crime." "Everywhere there are good people and bad people," said Sidibe on the matter. "But if you behave and integrate yourself, the problem disappears."
In his case, he succeeded in Recas (Toledo). When he came to this town with plenty of black labor, immigrants were found on one side and the other local population. The ratio was zero. Purely labor. He led the first contact with the natives. He says he looked rare, with both Mali and Senegal in the area, a white painted black on being a King Balthazar in the parade on 5 January. Sidibé, who after eight years of English lands heads the Association of Malians in Spain, took the initiative. The black Magus was black and finally social relations began to flow naturally.
Moussa Kanoute, a fellow who crossed the strait in 1995 nestled in the belly of a truck, has another perspective. Said that racism, which has suffered a clear stone in Roquetas de Mar (Almería), is endemic. "Something that can not be completed. It is from the beginning of time. But we can improve." Moussa lives on the outskirts of Madrid. Sometimes, he says, feels a little English. Fourteen years is a long time here. Seeing is exalted to play football team, for example. If he scores, he feels a bit yours. Then some English (white) will look to sourly. Then ask: "Why are you celebrating with us?". And instead of lifting it, the black bow your head.
Source:
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/Ser/negro/Espana/elpepusoceps/20091011elpepspor_7/Tes
Chinese subtitles STUCK 
