Black people too can be racist, and pretty good at it

Few people can admit they loved Obama because of his color

Just a few days back, I watched Ugandans make the United States elections a big thing here. Almost each and every media house, village Chairman and lecturers were getting their minds on explaining the college vote to whoever cared to listen.

The US elections as we came to learn, is the true mockery of democracy, I mean this is the only country where your vote doesn't really count and the winner doesn't need the majority of the vote. I doubt whether those who voted from Uganda were even considered, if Obama was declared a winner even without the results of some states........

Since this election trail started last year, I've been baffled by the fact that various Africans were interested in the outcome. For the first one in 2008, I clearly understood the enthusiasm but for the second one! I was merely confused.

Now, I usually tell people that the world has been unfair to two types of people and these are men and whites. In an example of man being abused by the wife, no one will mind the case but if a woman, say, a minister was abused by the husband and it becomes a national issue.

This also applies to the white people; a simple statement by a white dude can easily be blown out of proportion to label it a racist remark unlike the straight forward statements by black people.

In a certain way the world has been forced to think that white people can be racist but not black people and the sad thing is that this notion is all over the place. That’s why Jay-Z can openly organize an event where they will stop all white people from accessing and, that’s okay, in the same way Kanye West can snatch a white Taylor Swift's microphone at an award show and still gets forgiven.

Its only blacks with a television station (BET)and three award shows celebrating entirely Black people's music, which no one is complaining about yet, if some one started an all white entertainment TV you will hear everyone scream racist.

Now this came out to play during the American elections, many African countries and their locals came out to awash Obama with a lot of praise, they praised his record as president (which record they had no idea of) the others, especially media houses came out to defend his record for the past for years and the four years he's yet to begin, others went on to rank him as the best American president ever.

I watched all the drama unfold and I couldn't stop to wonder why Africans were so into this election.

Was it because he had the very best interests for Africa? Was it because he was the smarter of the two candidates? Or it was because he is black and Romney is white?

Much as few can admit, many Africans and African-Americans supported Obama for a sole reason that he's black. Some even said it in statements like: “we are getting the blood brother a second term”, some were more blunt like: “he's a Blackman like me” and for them that didn't sound racist, yet the same answer by a white in regard to Mitt Romney would have been met with a quick question “so you don't support president Obama because he's black?”, then the person would be labeled racist.

I can't say I supported either Obama or Romney because I barely cared about the outcome, not that I hated him, am just one of the few Africans who came to their senses and learnt that however much we may want to posses him, Obama is American. He won't lift and bring the entire Wall Street to Kenya or Africa so people should get over themselves.

That said, I didn't like the way the African press was biased while showing updates of this campaign, I understand there are many people who didn't watch any of Mitt Romney's speech but got updates of what and where Obama was. On my part I feel that was a bit racist because if you are Ugandan TV station gaining neither from the Republicans nor Democrats, why are you sticking to covering only one person's campaign trail.

I watched in shock as pastors and politicians, who have been so vocal against Obama, (I hear he supports gay rights) those people were busy celebrating his win and chanting “son of our land”.

Yet, as all that goes on, none of them feels they were being racist towards the white Romney, I even asked a  friend what if Obama was white would she support him? Her answer was that she wouldn't care about the election. She strongly thinks whites are racists, and she's not.

My face book account was ambushed with insults after I posted that I didn't care whether Obama won or lost, one person actually questioned my loyalty to “mother Africa” and even asked if I was white. Now that was a racist judgment that suggests since am black, I must lose my self in support of another Blackman even when I don't like what he says.

Africans can be racist to the extent that if Obama was to stand for president in Kenya, they could have sidelined him for being half-caste.  In Uganda where many partied to celebrate him, Obama would have been castigated and, his political opponents would have labeled him with racist names like Mukyotala.

Much as Africa couldn't wait for America to get a black president, can you imagine that apart from Zambia who recently got a white Vice President, no black African country has voted, elected or chosen a white or an Indian resident as president since they got independence...over to you.