Periodically in the media, not only Kenyan, are published reports, diaries or services of journalists, bloggers or influencers who "discover" the Italian Malindi. This has been happening for 40 years now, and every time I read them, archive them and often comment on them. When I have the opportunity, I also contact the author and the magazine to discuss and understand where certain considerations, sometimes hasty, often superficial and sometimes even out of the blue, come from.
The latest in the series (now clearly overdue) is a BBC article that recounts, as if to lay bare for the first time, the "tourist colonisation" of the town resting on the shores of Kenya's Indian Ocean. 
Here too, as in other articles, the surprise and pleasure of good food (because in the eyes of foreigners, making good food is always our greatest asset) is accompanied by a negative tone: at first mischievously one wonders why Italians have been frequenting Malindi for so long, so much so that by now generations of Kenyans in those parts speak fluently the language of Dante Alighieri, the activities have Italian names and one can find products and habits of our land, then one mentions the fact that Italians here enjoy a sort of immunity (ifh, once perhaps . ...) and the African reporter experiences all this as a sort of tourist racism, so much so that in his article he feels almost threatened by a crowd of elderly Italians who stand in front of him in a restaurant, protecting their reserved seats.
I tried to imagine the scene of terrible old men gnashing their dentures and lifting their forks, so much so that the unfortunate young black man is forced to flee and seek refuge in a local fry-shop.
It is not so much that those who live here are unaccustomed to these descents into the depths of the commonplace, but rather that after 50 years of 'Malinditaly' if there is one period in which it cannot be said that we are allotting and lobbying it is precisely this. In the last issue of the prestigious periodical "Africa Rivista", I wrote about the slow disappearance of our Malindi, to the advantage of a town where integration is the master and where I hope that our long-standing presence can become synonymous with added value, an extra excellence that Kenya can boast of.
You only have to take a tour of the best restaurants and hotels to see how even Italian hospitality has adapted to the new tourist offer and local tourism, and how integration with Italians has always been much more possible and evident than with all other European nationalities. And this is a fact. This last assumption would be enough to explain why "Little Italy" exists on the beaches of Kenya, without climbing on the mirror of extradition, which has been possible for years thanks to bilateral agreements, of the fact that it is not being Italian that gives benefits in this country, as in the rest of the world, but having a lot of money, but above all that in 50 years, thanks to the Italians in Malindi, thousands of boys and girls of several generations have been able to study, work, support their children and families, create their trade and carry on their business. There are masonry houses, with roofs where it does not rain inside, citizens who are motorised and empowered also thanks to the Italians.
Racism, my dear victimist bloggers, is something completely different.

For those who want to read the BBC article, here is the link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56284827?fbclid=IwAR3rzN8PWDjDkDmPh1QdEVtT3n1j8NbEp1tpwA5QJBrpjq-mJJIFX8eFPkg