Black in China vs United States

Julian McCall moved from the United States to China when he was 15. He was expecting police to pull him over while running, wearing a hoodie, but he was pleasantly surprised at the freedom he experienced. According to him, Chinese people and their government don’t associate Africans with criminal activity.

Being an African in the United States, or any country involved in the European Slave Trade of African peoples, forces one to grapple with the legacies of slavery and colonialism, day in and day out. Living like this conditions people to believe prejudice and white supremacist policies are universal.

As he said in his Miami Herald opinion piece, ‘While slavery’s oppressive shadow still shapes American society 150 years after its dissolution, it simply never existed in China. Black people are not a fixture in Chinese history, so my skin generated genuine curiosity rather than suspicion. My Blackness was certainly still Othering, but in a much more benign and tolerable way than in America.’

For more on his perspective, please read his 2022 article, ‘Sanctuary: Black in Beijing’ in the Miami Herald.