Elizabeth Portelli with her husband.Elizabeth Portelli with her husband.

Relentless racial insults, such as “monkey” and “devil’s child”, are what drove Elizabeth Portelli out of Malta 14 years ago and she is saddened by the “horrendous” discrimination black people still face on the island.

The daughter of a Maltese father and a Jamaican mother, Ms Portelli felt compelled to speak out against the minority who felt it was okay to be racist following Wednesday’s attack on a black Hungarian studying in Malta.

“In Malta you’re celebrated for being racist but there should be awareness that it’s not okay and they should be ashamed of their actions,” she said, adding that unfortunately it was the minority who often spoke the loudest.

Speaking from her home in the UK, where she has since settled with her husband and children, the 33-year-old Royal Navy medic said she was angry and embarrassed by the treatment Daboma Jack received in Malta.

In Malta you’re celebrated for being racist

Mr Jack was trying to instil some order in a queue of frustrated people at the Valletta bus terminus during the chaotic roll-out of the Tallinja card, when a Maltese woman spat at him three times, then slapped him, as the crowd applauded her and a policeman looked on.

‘Angry, embarrassed by treatment of man’

To make matters worse, three RIU officers then wrestled Mr Jack to the ground and handcuffed him, while the woman escaped.

This story has spurred the Civil Liberties Minister to publicly apologise, but Mr Jack is urging “action over words” because he has experienced more racist encounters than he cares to remember.

Ms Portelli’s experience of her childhood in Malta is similar and she exposes an ingrained culture of racist attitudes among islanders that precedes the influx of migrants Malta faced when it joined the EU in 2004.

Growing up in Malta – she attended the Santa Venera State school and later Junior Lyceum in Mrieħel – Ms Portelli was immediately made to feel different because of her darker skin colour.

“I was the only black kid in school at the time and the children would call me xadina [monkey] and sewda [blackie],” she recalled.

“When I was just six, the grandmother of my friend said black people were marked by the devil because they had sinned, and they weren’t allowed into heaven; it was only for those who were pure white. These words really marked me.”

At school, the young Elizabeth kept to herself and her books, but had a steely nature where she often found herself defending the underdog; a trait that today pushed her to speak out.

I’d get to the job interview and they’d say, ‘Mela inti sewda

The abuse never stopped and when she was at Junior Lyceum her art teacher – out of the blue, and in front of the entire class – told her she was not “worth the scum on her shoes” and that she should be “grateful” she was allowed to live on the island. The teacher was fired.

“The insults were relentless and every day. Of course, there were teachers who were absolutely wonderful, but it’s always the minority that left a mark,” she said.

Discrimination dogged her throughout and every time she applied for a job she would land an interview because her name was Maltese, but the second her prospective employers saw her, the post was somehow always suddenly filled.

“I’d get to the job interview and they’d say, ‘Mela inti sewda’ [Oh, you’re black]. Then they’d make their excuses and say the interview had just been a formality and the post had been filled. I was constantly finding the doors closed because of my skin colour,” she said.

The proverbial straw that forced her to escape the daily racial onslaught happened when, at the age of 19, she was sitting on a bench in a garden in Victoria with her boyfriend, who also happened to be black.

“A Gozitan woman called the police because there were children playing in the garden and we were scaring them. No amount of protestations and evidence of my Maltese nationality helped change the policeman’s mind.

“He told me you may be Maltese but you don’t look it and you have to leave.”

And that is exactly what she did. She bought a one-way ticket for the UK and left the island to finally fulfil her potential without being hindered by the way she looked.

“I understand people are angry over immigration issues, but I have chagrin with the way Maltese interpret skin colour and racism has only gotten worse.”

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