With reference to BA's letter, [#1] We are people, not animals [/#], Feb 17), I have heard many such stories before. And the harassment is all directed at people who come from Africa.

What is wrong with us? Where is our famous Malaysian hospitality? Is that reserved only for whites and never for Africans?

Our Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is very popular in Africa because he champions the causes of African nations. We invite these African students to our country and they come all excited, expecting our rhetoric of brotherhood to be matched by our behavior. And what a shock it must be to them to discover that we behave so badly.

I am told that groups of them who attend a private college and live in a condo in PJ are the subject of a complaint to management by other residents over their use of the swimming pool. It appears that the other residents will not use the swimming pool if these kids from Africa use it. There is a real fear that the skin colour of African kids will run and alter the complexion of the Malaysians.

It is weird how so many Malaysians venerate skin colour as though somehow light skin tone is a measure of racial superiority. In the United States and Europe, if you are not white you are black. They do not see the subtle variations in skin tone which are so prevalent in Asia.

How sad it is. We were colonised by the whites. We were conditioned to believe in their superiority. We accepted their measure of what is right and wrong and what is beautiful. The blond blue-eyed white person is the ultimate measure of beauty and on that scale none of us measure up. Everything white is good and everything black is bad.

So we dye our hair, wear contact lenses and lighten our skin with chemicals. And in some cases, undergo plastic surgery to alter the shape of our noses.