What makes a person of colour Italian is a question that is approached in two different ways: the racist approach and the anti-racist approach taken by progressives. The unconscious racism often denounced by the latter is – take this opinion with a grain of salt – a minor evil. What is unconscious racism? It's a question like the one I'm often asked: “Do you ever think of going back to Sri Lanka?”
I am, like many children of immigrants in Italy, a person with a pretty stable life. Sure, I don't know how my life will be ten years from now, so I can't completely exclude the possibility that one day I might migrate elsewhere. But it is reasonable to presume that I will always stay in the West. Still, this is a frequent question, one of a series of other questions that Italians of colour are often asked.
“How come you speak Italian so well?” “How do you say ‘dad’ in your language?” “Are your parents cleaners?” The kind of sentences that range from badly expressed compliments to stereotypes and provocations. We perceive them all as micro-aggressions.
