I agree many people would hold your view that they probably brought it upon themselves -- just like any other immigrant who gets rough treatment in a foreign land. But other immigrants in Saudia are not treated that way -- and if the Blacks misbehave it is because of denied opportunities due to their skin color, plain as that, and that's wrong.
I really wouldn't go far to "negotiate" as that is too political. I am not even interested in the Saudis or their thoughts on the matter -- they neither impress me nor interest me; and certainly won't surprise me in whatever they do in the name of racism, it's part of their mindset.
My original purpose is to document an anthropological story of a people caught up in a land that is not theirs in terms of their own construction of their identity and
denied visibility (pretending a group does not exist because it simply could not exist in the community by virtue of its skin color). In studying
Hausa Arabs in northern Nigeria, I am interested in a
masked visibility (wearing black masks to hide white faces) -- so you see, it's purely anthropological, not even social (in terms of remediating programs -- although the book/film could initiate remediating actions) or political (in terms of getting governments to talk) -- because as Waziri says, neither the Nigerians nor the Saudis would care about these marginized people; yet both could use them as
internal ambassadors of goodwill -- but probably too blinkered to see beyond both their snub and hawked noses.
I really have no other policy implications aside from documentation. My classic model of sub-cultural analysis is Abner Cohen's brilliant study of the Hausa in Shagamu as recorded in his
Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: a Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns, 1969, and available at Amazon. So Waziri, go ahead, make my day; talk to your "big shots", and have a stab at contribution to knowledge!
Abdalla
