Why are black people not good enough to be your hotel managers?

The hotel, located in the Rubanga Division of Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, put out a poster advertising vacancies and employment opportunities.

Some of the 19 positions on offer to anyone who wishes to apply include social media manager, car driver, salon attendant and gardener.

For the two top positions though, the hotel would prefer white people or Indians.

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African countries and shitholes

Recently, particularly with the wave of nationalist sentiment in the United States and Europe, racism has taken on a new, more immediate form for Africans who were once thought to be exempted from the most direct forms of bigotry.

Donald Trump’s shithole comments may have angered many Africans but that moment was, in many ways, a simple affirmation of a perception of African countries that has creeped out in the open, subtly and directly, on many occasions.

Racism has left massive imprints on the African continent in modern times, the workplace, in the media, in government.

Yet, as much as we deride it, we find that Africans are as eager to be bigoted against their fellow countrymen as the people they term racist.

ALSO READ: Ugandan president backs 'frank' Trump after 'shithole' remark

Serene Hotel’s poster advertises the position of Hotel Manager, the highest position in the establishment but applicants should “preferably (be a ) white person”.

For the position of Restaurant Manager, Indians are preferred, the poster reads.

How to be racist, against your own self

The case could be made that the hotel is on the hunt for certain skills and the privilege of access that hiring a white person gives them.

But if carefully thought over, it is a pile of trash.

Putting a white person at the helm of an African establishment, run with the dedicated labour of Africans, enforces the most inane stereotypes about how African businesses are run as opposed to those under the management of white people.

ALSO READ: These 7 racist ads will leave you cringing in pain

Most people expect white-run hotels, and anything for that matter, to be better maintained than those run by black people. To give themselves a fighting chance, many establishments are more than ready to put a white face in the big chair.

It is a trend that one can notice in Nigerian hotels, where a foreign manager or head chef sashays through the building or the restaurant, as the case may be, while local workers keep the wheel turning and the water running.

In the end, what moral right does one have to lament racism when we are so ready to use it to our advantage when we can.

Already, Serene Hotel’s poster is already drawing criticism, as it makes the rounds on social media.