Pop artist Andy Warhol once said that in the world of the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.
Pop artist Andy Warhol once said that in the world of the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. For the chocolate complexioned Lou Jing from Shanghai, the teenaged daughter of a Chinese woman and her African-American extramarital lover, those 15 minutes of television fame, however, resulted in heartburn — and an avalanche of racist abuse.
The Chinese-speaking Lou’s appearance on the Jia You! Dong Fang Tian Shi (Come on, Oriental Angels!) talent show on Shanghai’s Dragon TV stirred up an intense ‘culture clash’ after hundreds of viewers posted racist Internet comments criticising her and her Chinese mother who had her out of wedlock.
Lou’s mother had an extramarital relationship with an African-American, who later deserted her. When Lou was born, radiant in her chocolate complexion, her cuckolded Chinese ‘father’ divorced his wife, who brought Lou up as a single mother.
Lou narrated her dramatic life story when she appeared on the talent show, and said that she hoped that her biological father would see her on television and come back into their lives. Many Chinese viewers were moved by Lou’s story but many more were incensed by her mother’s violation of ‘racial purity’.
“Mixing yellow with black (skin colours) only produces gross results,” said a particularly vicious commentator. “How’s it that this union did not produce a zebra?” wondered another. “I can understand the mother flipping for a foreigner, which is considered fashionable, but she shouldn’t have picked a black,” said a third.
A heart-broken Lou responded angrily to the criticism, saying that she “vehemently opposed” the “racist attack”, and that she felt that the colour of her skin should never have come in for discussion. In any case, she said, even if viewers felt her parents had made a mistake, they shouldn’t have targeted her. She said she reserved the right to take legal action against anyone who libels her or her family.
The episode is symptomatic of racial biases latent in some Chinese, and of the strains that are surfacing in China’s relationship with Africa and with black Africans living in China.
Recently, some Africans in Guangzhou staged a public protest against alleged ‘racial profiling’ for passport checks in residential neighbourhoods. Increasingly, Chinese interests in Africa have come in for attacks as China expands its footprint in the continent.
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