Ebola as the New Instrument of Stereotype.

The Ebola crisis has begun to take its tolls on the private businesses of African immigrants from Ebola-afflicted countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In Harlem, cab drivers with origins from the affected African nations are losing customers at a very fast rate. One cab driver said one customer threatened to get out of his cab as soon as he discovered he was from Guinea. It was a most terrible stigma.

Similar fate is being suffered by African women who braid hairs in Harlem, New York. Unlike before the Ebola scare, a lot of the women are now often seen sitting idly every day as no one wants to patronize them for fear of contracting Ebola.

There have also been reports of Liberians in Washington who are being directed by their employers to get off their jobs temporarily. “If I’m on the metro, I don’t talk,” Liberian writer Alphonso Toweh told the Washington Post. “If I’m on the bus, I don’t talk. If people hear the accent, they think you are a Liberian and that you have Ebola.

This is not only ignorant but also pathetic!