Question of the Week - Part 1: "Are there white people in Africa?"

Starting this week, and for as long as I receive questions, I think I need to answer commonly ask questions about Africa. If you have a question about Africa, send it to kevin.obomanu@gmail.com or tweet it to @theobomanu. I'll try to answer as many as I can, but I'll only answer one every Tuesday, and it will be one blog post for question. You can ask anonymously, if you'd like, just like the question for today came from someone in the Chicago suburbs.

Question: "Are there white people in Africa?"

Answer: Yes, and more than many think, based on how you define "white." According to the 2010 US Census, a white person would be anyone who has European, North African or Middle Eastern origins. What makes this definition a bit confusing for some is the borders of the Middle East (since it is a term coined by the West for the geo-cultural-political region that encompasses parts of Asia and Africa) are not definitive. Some groups believe the Middle East is all of the northern most African countries, but also including Sudan and Somalia, and all of the Asian countries going east from the Red Sea to Pakistan and as far north as Uzbekistan. Others believe the Middle East is simply Egypt in Africa then all of the nations on the Arabian Peninsula to no further north and east than Iran. If we were to agree the the borders are as wide as the first belief and with the2010 US Census, that would mean nearly a fourth of Africa's population is white, as in all North Africa and the white (of mainly European descent) populations in other African nations.

South Africa is mostly known for it's white people, thanks to it's horrible legacy of apartheid. However, white people are the minority in South Africa (about 80% of South Africa is black) and the rest is white, (east and south) Asian, and coloured (the South African term for someone of two or more races). However, since most of Africa was colonized by white Europeans and some descendants of the colonizers stayed in Africa for various reasons, white people are pretty much in every African country.

Even though I have answered the question, pretty much my answer also proves how race is simply a social construct. There's no definite answer for what race is, but whatever you consider a white person to be, they are in Africa.