African immigrants in Detroit have been fighting the U.S government for classifying them as “Whites” instead of as “Blacks”.
Sixty-one-year-old Mostafa Hefny, a Detroit immigrant has been trying so hard over the past 30 years to be officially recognised as a black man. Since he arrived United Sates in 1978, he has been trying to get his racial title and has even reached out to President Barack Obama for help.
According to Mostafa, he is proud to be a black man and an African man, “My classification as a white man takes away my black pride, my black heritage and strong black identity.”
Hefny told the News that he is a Nubian from the northern part of Sudan and the southern portion of Egypt. Nubians are an ancient group of Egyptians considered to be more African than Arab, but when she came to America, he was considered as a white man.
Hefny says that he has been maltreated and denied promotions because of his insistence that he is black. He claims that he lost out on a teaching position at Wayne State University in the early 1990s because the position was designated for a minority. He says that he did not qualify because he is classified as white.
“I have been awarded, inadvertently, the negative effects of being black such as racial profiling, stereotypes and disenfranchisement due to my Negroid features,” Hefny said. “However, the legal demand of my racial classification of ‘white’ prevents me from receiving benefits established for black people.”
In all, Hefny, who is currently unemployed and gets help from his family, says that he’s lost five jobs because of his battle to be classified as a black man. He filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in 1997 to be classified as a black man, but that case was dismissed.
Hefny has reached out to the Justice Department and the United Nations to try to change his racial status. In June he wrote President Obama seeking help.
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“I need your help,” Hefny’s letter said. “As you can see in the enclosed photo, I am a black man. My complexion is darker than yours. I was born and raised in Africa and you were not, yet you are classified as Black and I am classified as White.”
There is also an online petition trumpeting Hefny’s racial battle. The Association of Black Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Nubian Advocates – an organization that he co-founded – posted the petition and has collected 30 signatures as of Monday.
Hefny claims he has missed job opportunities due to being classified as White that has to be a first.
