While reading this amazing book by Nadeesha Uyangoda (“L’unica persona nera nella stanza” ~ “The only black person in the room”) I simultaneously realised two things: this was the first time for me reading a BIPOC author from my own country (Italy) and, often, when talking about BIPOC authors, we talk about BIPOC authors from the USA.
Maybe the reason is, as the writer of the book put it, that we (Italians and Europeans) see racism as something that doesn’t really touch us, or at least not as badly as in the USA for exemple, which is consequentially why we don’t talk about it.
Quote “But the fact that an Afro-American had to die at the hands of the police on the other side of the Atlantic and that an anti-racist movement was needed elsewhere so that in Italy, even in Europe, we could protest and talk about structural racism makes us think. And the point of view that we decided to adopt to narrate this renewed interest in this theme starts from an assumption: we are not so racist".