Being black in Italy
Dickens Olewe meets Italy\u2019s first and only black senator, Tony Iwobi, and hears how a new generation of black Italians are fighting to claim their place in a society that\u2019s still very white.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Senator Iwobi moved to Italy as a young man and carved out a successful career in business. Now he\u2019s immigration spokesperson for the right-wing Lega party and wants to stop the illegal flow of migrants coming to Italy from Africa. BBC Africa journalist Dickens Olewe follows Iwobi in the Senate in Rome and finds out what it\u2019s like to be black in a party that\u2019s widely perceived as racist.
At a festival on the bank of the River Tiber, Dickens meets aspiring politician Paolo Diop from the Far-Right Brothers of Italy. Diop moved to Italy from Senegal as a baby and describes himself as \u201can Italian nationalist and an African nationalist\u201d who wants to \u201cmake Africa great\u201d by sending migrants home.
We also meet the young black activists coming of age in the midst of the migrant crisis and the rise of the political right. Born and bred in Italy, they feel deeply Italian but are not always recognised as such - among them the rapper Tommy Kuti whose work explores his Afro-Italian identity, the founder of Milan\u2019s Afro Fashion Week Michelle Francine Ngonmo and the writer Igiaba Scego, whose parents grew up in one of Italy\u2019s African colonies.
Producer: Helen Grady
(Image: Afro-Italian rapper and musician Tommy Kuti in Milan. Credit: Helen Grady/BBC)