Article April 17, 2017 Issue

Blacks … Whites … Overcoming prejudice

Daniel Mfumu Mawonzi

Originally published in the April 2017 French edition of The Herald of Christian Science.

I live in the Democratic Republic of Congo and would like to share a beautiful experience I had on a trip I was taking for the first time. After landing in Geneva, Switzerland, I needed to continue on to a different town, where friends were waiting for me.

I was already on the train when I realized that my phone conversation with my friend was going to be interrupted for lack of minutes. It was difficult for me to buy more minutes right away, and I was afraid of getting lost without my friend’s directions.

On the train, there were black Africans a little bit away on my left and white people next to me on my right. It seemed obvious to me that I would have to ask someone for assistance. As I was about to ask the person sitting next to me for her help, a very negative thought with regard to myself, the concept of race, and the help I needed suddenly went through my mind: I thought that it would be useless to solicit assistance from the person next to me, simply because her skin was white.

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