Stephen Okeke is the sculptor turned author turned political commentator and, even he admits, an all around complainer. His beef tonight is with a series of awareness posters about measles and skin rashes that are being circulated by the Ministry of Health. The posters show children affected by the illnesses, which seems harmless enough. But Okeke’s issue is that the faces of the white and Asian children are masked but the face of a black child isn’t. Because of that, he is demanding the posters be withdrawn because he says they are offensive and discriminatory.
Stephen Okeke, Offended by Health Poster
“The black person’s face should not be shown if other faces are not shown. If you must show faces, show everybody’s identity. This is simply done to continue that dirty and horrible practice of saying black
people are inferior, they have inferior genes, they are susceptive to diseases.
So once you mention this disease, the first person that cringes is a black person and we are demanding the Ministry of Health to withdraw these posters and reprint posters that do not show black as the face of disease. If the faces of the children should be concealed, the faces of all the children should be concealed. The practice of insisting or depicting or trying to show black people as inferior should stop. It is affecting black people psychologically, it is affecting us socially and we are beginning to solve the problem from here.”
CEO in the Ministry of Health Dr. Peter Allen says he couldn’t speak on the particular poster but says that as policy goes, government means no disrespect and distribute the posters to help communities. He did say the Ministry would be happy to take Okeke’s comments into consideration and review the poster.
