Racism pt1 – Belgium

Clara and Kayla shared the same European schooling.  These two best friends, coming from different households and ethnicities, however, provide their own distinct perspectives on the topic of racism from instances witnessed, discussed and experienced throughout their upbringings.

Where did you grow up?

Clara Bracken: I grew up in Brussels, Belgium. More specifically in Ixelles, a commune (or municipality) close to the center that is a real microcosm of cultures. I live in the Portuguese neighborhood of the commune, and yet the Congolese neighborhood “Matongé” is just 10 minutes away from me. The commune is quite wealthy; however, this is not homogenous throughout the commune, thus there is a mix of communities.

Kayla George:  I’ve lived in Brussels my whole life. However, I’m actually from Sierra Leone and Togo (West Africa) and I have the French nationality. Both my parents work as interpreters for the commission and so I was rather privileged. I always grew up in the district of Etterbeek in Brussels in streets where there were a lot of ‘eurocrats’ and so it was almost like a gated community although the gates where metaphorical. I did the entirety of my schooling in the European School of Brussels.

Exposure to cultural/ethnic diversity?

Clara B: I went to a European school my whole life, and the motto was “United in diversity”, and while it is true that we were a very diverse European school population, we weren’t necessarily exposed to many other races, or social classes. In this respect, we weren’t as diverse as the school prided itself to be. I was a lot more exposed to other ethnicities as I grew up living in Ixelles, and I would frequently walk past Matongé, the center of Congolese Brussels, I also live a minute away from a street with predominantly North African owned local shops.

Hence, I would say I was exposed to different communities through my neighborhood and through attending my local dance classes, where my interactions weren’t limited to a strictly privileged European bubble. Besides, my experience of Brussels and racial diversity is maybe very different to that of young people from other neighborhoods in my city. They are quite detached from the rest of Brussels and are quite proud of being so.

Kayla G: Being a black girl, I was exposed to diversity through family and family friends as well as extracurricular activities that weren’t organized by my school. However, in my community (where I lived as well as the school) the lack of diversity was blatant. My neighborhood consisted of wealthy Caucasian families, some of them diplomats or European officials. There was diversity within the Caucasians however with varied nationalities such as English, Spanish, German, Swedish, the list goes on.

At school it was relatively similar. Due to the fact that it was a European school, there were different sections for each nationality. I was in the English section. It was quite shocking when I think back on it because in a school of around 3,200 students there was a handful of non-Caucasian children.

In my year, I was the ‘token black girl’ which was extremely annoying. For some kids, I was the only diversity they encountered, a few when coming into “maternelle” (Kindergarten) had told me that I was the first black person they were ever friends with, it was almost as if I was a trophy. Diversity was not discussed in my school; I assume that was because it was a European school.  People believed that they were open, honest and inclusive since they were around people of different nationalities. However, as an outspoken person I would often try to call teachers out on the way they talked about other ethnicities.  The common portrayal of the poor African kids and the poor Asian kids was infuriating.

Many people did not even believe that when I went to Togo or Sierra Leone, I wasn’t living in a little clay house with a thatched roof and no running water or electricity. In my home however, it was another story. My parents always taught me about my African heritage (them both having grown up in Africa) and made sure I was proud of who I was. They also made sure I didn’t discriminate towards other ethnic ‘minorities’. I guess they were pretty ‘woke’.

Something I really appreciate is that my mother used to work at the UN and so they used to live in New York. My parents and my brother were confronted to so much racism, however, they never gave up they always stood up for themselves in front of these racist people and never let anyone talk down to them.  They taught me to speak up no matter what because my opinion is just as valuable as the next person’s. My parents surrounded themselves with intellectually inspiring and diverse people. I learnt so much just from attending their dinner parties.

What was the degree of awareness of racism in your upbringing?

Clara B: Growing up I didn’t understand the intricacies racism brought up. I understood that hating someone for their skin color was wrong, but I never sought a deeper understanding of this. I also didn’t question my racist attitudes as one of my best friends was black.  So I naively believed I couldn’t be racist, while in hindsight, it is far more complicated than that. In the school community, as we weren’t extremely diverse in terms of skin color. I can’t tell you my school had to deal with it a lot, although I do remember Kayla, a West African friend of mine being racially targeted by a younger girl.  That instance shocked me. It was the first time I had seen such a blatant act of racism. But apart from that, I wasn’t confronted to many situations where racism was obvious.

K.G. At school a young girl… didn’t want me to play with her and the others out of fear I would taint the ball with my blackness.

Kayla G: I encountered racism from an early age. I remember at school a young girl telling me she didn’t want me to play with her and the others out of fear that i would taint the ball with my blackness. I reported the issue to the school and all they did was tell her off. Looking back on it I regret not having told my mother as I believe that her not being reprimanded properly for her actions made her not realize that the way she was acting was improper. I encountered racism and ignorance so much at school that at a certain point I stopped noticing.

I realize now, in my first year of university, my friends are telling me when someone is being racist. Around the age of 16 is when I started calling out to my friends the racism that I noticed. How, for example, all of them would refer to me as their black friend as if I wasn’t normal, how some would ask me for the n* word pass, how some would touch my hair and treat me like a doll or some sort of exhibition. When I was in my annoying tween years (12-13-14-15) I always felt like my parents were embarrassing by how heated they would get and how confrontational they would be, but I realized later on that it was necessary and that they were simply demanding the respect they always deserved. 

Are you aware of institutionalized racism’s existence in your respective country?

Clara B: As for institutionalized racism, the Belgian government has a lot of work to get done. I was not in a Belgian school system but in my European school, we followed a syllabus that applied to 20+ other schools around Europe and the teaching of colonialism seemed like it depended greatly on the teacher, in the sense that it wasn’t highlighted in the syllabus, therefore teachers could chose to briefly mention it or not at all.

I can’t say I learnt a great amount about what Leopold II did in the Congo at school. I was also curious to see if this brushing over of Belgium’s colonial history was as frequent in Belgian schools, and upon further research, it also seems like it isn’t taught, or if it is, it is done arbitrarily. Then as far as police brutality goes, we like to denounce the American authorities and their violent acts of oppression, but Belgian police is far from innocent. North African communities are highly targeted by the police, and recently a 19-year-old boy, Adil was killed by the police for the most banal reason – he wasn’t respecting social distancing measures. This was initially covered by the media, but now I haven’t seen any clear follow ups, moreover, this isn’t an isolated incident and lots of young people from that community have been victims of police brutality.

Médecins du Monde also released a report explaining the fact that 1/4 refugees/migrants who make a transitory stop in Brussels, are victims of police brutality. That number is alarming, and I only found this out as I was doing my own research for these questions. It is also important to remember that there has been a rise of the extreme right, Vlaams Belang, and their takes on immigration and minorities are controversial and at times discriminatory. All in all, there was once a time where I believed Belgium wasn’t doing too bad in terms of discrimination and racism, but that was merely due to the lack of media coverage surrounding these issues, and my detachment from the Belgian community at times due to which type of school I went to.

Kayla G: Wealthy Belgians seem to believe that there is virtually no racism in Belgium which is a blatant lie.  The institutionalize racism is deeply rooted to the colonial days where they exhibited the black families in museums in cages.  People think Brussels is diverse because it’s the capital of the European Union and we have a larger Black and Arab community.  Nonetheless these communities are extremely segregated with districts such as Molenbeek (“the Arab district”) and Matongé (“the African district”).  In Belgian schools they speak about the colonization of the Congo with relatively no depth, none of the students really know the extent of horrors and inhumane acts that the Belgians committed.  In the European schools it’s just as bad, just in the context the history of the E.U.

Degree of your own awareness of racism in your everyday life/community?

Clara B: My awareness of racism has changed with time; I am by no means saying I know it all and I’m aware I need to continuously seek to understand minorities positions in Belgium. Moreover, being educated in a privileged and predominantly white school, I was often detached by certain realities in Brussels. Although people of color do not owe you explanations, having a close friend with west African parents helped me a lot, as she has called me out on implicit biases, in addition to this, she taught me the ways in which racism was a lot more present than I had previously thought.

Kayla G: I was not only aware of the racism I encountered. However, my parents put me in many different sports, but it was never with the school, it was always with independent local businesses (like the local swimming pool, or local dance centers, or gymnastic centers etc.) My friends over there were of many different ethnicities although they were primarily of Arabic descent. They told me their experiences and I learnt a lot from them.

I think after a while people tried to censor themselves from being racist towards blacks or Arabs however when it came to Asians (the Asian continent is massive, here I’m talking about Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans), people never held back. Many of my friends from these countries were called “chintoc” on a regular basis, asked if they ate dogs, had people mock their eyes, told that they must be super smart etc. People always said they were harmless jokes but really what people were doing was making them feel different and apart and as if they did not belong.

How has anti-racist activism been received in your respective country?

Clara B: Anti-racist activism seems to have been received sort of well in Brussels, (I am speaking for Brussels because I am not aware of how other Belgian cities have reacted, and Brussels is very different to Antwerp, Gent, Bruges etc.). This being said, I am in a social media bubble where I follow people with my opinion so my exposure to other perspectives is unfortunately limited. Nevertheless, the news has been covering the protests, and they’ve been inviting activists on set to discuss the controversies surrounding Leopold II statues. Moreover, people are signing petitions that’ll oblige schools to teach more about Belgium’s colonial history, and several Leopold II statues have been vandalized.

Kayla G: I think in Brussels, the anti-racist waves have been received relatively well, many people have started educating themselves and protesting and apologizing, however some continue to deny that there is any in Brussels. I speak for Brussels because it is very different to the rest of Belgium. And the rest of Belgium, in particular Flanders are extremely conservative and have very racist parties such as the Flemish nationality far right party.

How is your country addressing the issue? Do you think it could be doing better at working to solve racism?

C.B. All in all, I do believe Belgium could be doing a better job.

Clara B: Similarly to what I have previously written, hopefully schools will follow up on changing the syllabus. As for racial profiling and police brutality, I can’t say they have announced any special measures to reduce marginalizing certain communities. In addition to this, hijabs have been just recently been banned at schools. All in all, I do believe Belgium could be doing a better job. There are still many issues surrounding communities not fully being able to integrate in Belgian society, police brutality against minorities and the lack of awareness Belgians have concerning their colonial past.

The BLM protests were so important, as it was the first time in my life I had ever heard so many discussions regarding what Leopold II actually did and I believe a lot of Belgians are seriously questioning the ways in which he has been previously glorified. These discussions also encouraged teachers and schools to think about how they should teach Belgium’s colonial past, and people are finally talking about Belgian police and their racially-focused acts of violence.

Kayla G:  I think in Brussels, the anti-racist waves have been received relatively well, many people have started educating themselves and protesting and apologizing, however some continue to deny that there is any in Brussels. I speak for Brussels because it is very different to the rest of Belgium. And the rest of Belgium, in particular Flanders are extremely conservative and have very racist parties such as the Flemish nationality far right party.

About the Article

Racism in Belgium seen through the eyes of two African-immigrant friends.

Racism

You May Also Like