Becoming “black” on migration routes
Sub-Saharan people who have crossed geographical borders to reach Morocco before they undertake the crossing to Europe discover that they are carriers of a border that is just as difficult to cross. These people become “black” on migration routes and experience racism. They try, as best they can, to adapt to what is an additional obstacle, and not the least, on their journey: they discover themselves the representatives of a radical otherness inscribed in their bodies. Their experience tells us that racism is multifaceted. It calls together the ideologies of slavery, colonialism, supremacism and articulates them with a contemporary image of the black African landing on the beaches of Spain, Italy, Greece from the Libyan, Moroccan or Tunisian coasts. At the intersection of the colonial and slave-holding vision of the Black and of the current African migrants, Sub-Saharan people suffer both racial and social otherness.