How to make sense of violence directed almost exclusively at Black migrants and their South African-born children and South Africans who look "too foreign."
Ime Okon, being born in South Africa and still experiencing xenophobia, is the detail that reframes everything for me. Because it tells you this isn't actually about immigration or legal status. What Afrophobia really exposes is how continental Blackness gets positioned outside the bounds of who deserves protection, regardless of your birth certificate. That's where the real interrogation needs to happen.
Ime Okon, being born in South Africa and still experiencing xenophobia, is the detail that reframes everything for me. Because it tells you this isn't actually about immigration or legal status. What Afrophobia really exposes is how continental Blackness gets positioned outside the bounds of who deserves protection, regardless of your birth certificate. That's where the real interrogation needs to happen.