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When Anti-Racism Becomes The New Racism

Uncomfortable truths about discrimination

James Ssekamatte
10 min readJun 1, 2022
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

I remember Akarth (not his real name) who was one of my very first friends when I moved to India in 2014. I don’t know for sure whether it is because of my dominant introversion but something about me values friendships much more than most people or at least, much more than the value most people admittedly place on their friendships.

There are many people who could consider me as their friend but in my reality, they are just familiar strangers. I may have their phone numbers, and maybe we even talk very often but their names don’t show up anywhere in my mental friendship book.

Therefore, when I refer to Akarth as my friend, I am not just referring to someone within my social circles. I am referring to someone I really liked and considered a friend and the true sense of the word.

What made me really like Akarth is hard to point to because it was many things that had to come together for me to accept that connection but if you were to point out one of the most important factors, it was his brutal honesty.

Akarth always made sure you knew what he was thinking. If he wanted to know something, he was never afraid to ask. I think this was because he was young at the time which made him less concerned with what…

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James Ssekamatte
James Ssekamatte

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