The appointment of Italy’s first black cabinet minister, Cecile Kyenge, 48, is a good example that we can pull together on a difficult issue like race for too many European countries. Kyenge’s appointment has ushered in a new era in Italy politics. Even so, her appointment has exposed in the raw the nation’s ugly race problem.
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Writes the Hufington Post, quoting AP, about Kyenge’s appointment: “One politician from a party that not long ago ruled in a coalition derided what he called Italy’s new ‘bonga bonga government.’ On Wednesday, amid increasing revulsion over the reaction, the government authorized an investigation into neo-fascist websites whose members called Kyenge ‘Congolese monkey’ and other epithets.”
A mother of two who lived in Modena with her Italian husband, Kyenge moved to Italy from her native Congo thirty years ago to study medicine. She is an eye surgeon.
Premier Enrico Letta said in his first speech to parliament that Kygenge’s appointment as minister for integration was a “new concept about the confines of barriers giving way to hope, of unsurpassable limits giving way to a bridge between diverse communities.”
How long will it take for Finland to appoint its first-ever non-white minister?
Thank you Anne Ceesay for the heads-up!