My Neighbor Artie – A True Story On Racism

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Artie was a typical dark skinned East Indian girl. She bore typical East Indian features. Some people would say was pretty, some would say she is ‘plain’ while others might have said she is attractive or sexy. By any count, she wasn’t ugly, at least not in my opinion. But she wasn’t exactly ‘supermodel’ quality either.

Related: The East Indian Race: What it is Really Made Up Of.

But Artie, under the influence of her mother, Nayo, had one major flaw: she hated people of African descent. A young African boy called ‘Drummy’ would pass by the street and call out to her in a tone of courtship. Artie would consistently rebuke the guy. Then one day her mother said to Drummy, ‘listen, I don’t care if my daughter takes 100 East Indian men, just as long as she doesn’t take a single black man’.

Drummy smiled and said OK. Artie would tease Drummy, and any other person of African descent she could get her eyes on, about being black. The funny thing was, Artie was a dark-skinned East Indian, and her skin complexion wasn’t much fairer than that of most Africans : it was about the same color.

On one occasion, while coming back from Primary school, Artie made some derogatory remarks about black people and two black kids took her up, asking her ‘so Africans are not people?’

Artie responded ‘No.’

Then one of the African girls told her that when she goes to the United States of America, she would be classified as ‘black’. Artie didn’t respond.

Needless to say, being a very fair-skinned East Indian, Artie, and most of the girls in the street I grew up in, absolutely loved me. At one point Artie, along with two other girls, restrained me physically while we were playing in the yard, and one of them jumped on me and started to kiss me all over, while I struggled to break free. I was around eight years old at the time.

I must admit that I did feel some emotional attraction to Artie and the other girls, but I never felt compelled to act on that force of attraction. I had my eyes on other girls from other villages.

During Artie’s teenage years, she was regarded as one of the biggest ‘hotties’ and guys from all around came to court and lime her. She eventually got into a relationship with an East Indian guy that turned sour. The guy was abusive, cheating and demanding. After ending the relationship, she married another East Indian guy who worked in the police force.

This relationship produced two children, and ended about ten years on.

One day, while I was still in Guyana, Artie asked me to drive her to a wake about six miles away, that she needed to meet a good friend. I parked on the other side of the Road and watched as Artie was hugging and kissing an African guy.

As we were driving home, she told me that that was an old friend from school. I didn’t ask any questions. I wasn’t really interested in knowing about it.

Not long after, I left our hometown for Brazil. I connected with Artie on Facebook. I noticed she had joined a Facebook group called ‘black men are one of the best things God created’.

Not too long after, I saw a picture of her kissing an African guy on Facebook. Some time later she told me that she and her husband broke up. And that he has another woman and a child in the capital city, Georgetown.

Then I saw her post a picture on her profile of young black man. I asked her if that is her new guy, and she answered in the affirmative. She told me that he is so kind and supportive of her, and makes her so happy; that he supports her financially and emotionally now that her mom is terminally ill.

Now isn’t this one of the most ironic stories of racism you’ll ever read?

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