“I’m a Black Italian, a Black European, a woman who was born in Rome with Somalian roots,” said writer Igiaba Scego. She spoke out about herself after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in police custody in Minnesota after being pinned to the ground, and whose last words were, “I can’t breathe.”
She arrived in Italy on Feb. 4, 2016. Of the flight that brought her and her husband and their two small children from Beirut to Rome, she remembers only the emotions she felt on the plane, and the flowers and hugs they got when they landed.