Let me interject a few small and inconvenient truths.

1)There are simply too many African teachers here lying about where they are really from. On a few occasions I have (stupidly) volunteered to help my school find foreign teachers. I'm not going to be one of these people who says EVERY TIME but rather frequently I got resumes and phone calls from Africans claiming to be either British or Canadian when 2 minutes into a conversation it was obvious to me they were not. As a result, yes, I stopped bothering with African applicants. If that makes me "racist" well, OK, then. I plead guilty. I just don't think it does.

2) Most schools at which I've worked in China employ foreign teachers to teach "Oral English." Again, if this makes me racist I guess I am, but a very high percentage of Africans I've met speak English with such a heavy African accent that I, a native speaker of English, sometimes have trouble understanding them. Most jobs teaching English writing here are taken by Chinese teachers and, in my opinion at least, rightfully so.

3) The large amount of truly sleazy Africans in big cities like Beijing and Guangzhou are certainly not helping to improve the image Chinese have of Africans. During the Olympic crackdown quite a few were politely asked to leave and with good cause.
The millions of spam emails coming from Africans promising money for "helping" them doesn't do any honest African much good either.

4) This will cause some protests but so be it. Very few Africans are truly "native speakers" of English. This will cause some here to howl that such things don't matter but in fact they do, sorry.

5) With the current economic downturn there are fewer jobs here in China and more of us white devils fleeing joblessness at home coming here to take them. (Whether they are qualified or not is another issue. Certainly many are not.) A few years back hiring Africans (and to an extent, Filipinos) was deemed essential. That is not the case so much anymore.

6) An earlier poster said this and I'll concur. Chinese are equal opportunity racists and xenophobes. Perhaps many think Africans are somehow "inferior" but they also believe white people are as well. One encounters this in subtle and not so subtle ways. Chinese are often shocked to hear me speak Chinese because they assume a white person has to be too stupid to do such a thing. I'm somewhat, um, big and I can't walk anywhere without hearing comments about fat white people. (Every once in a while, against my better judgement, I've yelled at some guy that I'm fat because my country is rich and his has been poor for a few thousand years. I immediately chastise myself afterward for stooping to their level.) Yes, the racism is more vehement toward blacks and I won't deny that. But the blue-eyed among us aren't immune from it. Most Chinese regard us as a necessary evil because they feel they need our language though they secretly, and not so secretly, speak of a day when they will kick our butts and force the whole world to speak and write their obviously superior language.

What i suppose I'd recommend to Africans seeking teaching positions here is to be creative. Make lemonade if you're handed lemons. China is doing a lot of business in Africa these days. Play up your African accent instead of pretending you don't have one. "If you're doing business in Africa you'll hear lots of people like me." Know what I mean? And, yes, it's a drag but stop bothering to apply for "Oral English" positions and play up your writing skills, especially at universities. Lots of white folk, myself included, despise teaching writing.

I've been here 6 years and this place can be very frustrating if you try to "fight it." The best you can do is "go with it." I don't think "China is a racist country" is even debatable, really. It definitely is. You can give yourself even higher blood pressure fighting it or accept it and do what you can. Someday you'll read an account of a white guy assaulting a Chinese guy after one too many "fat" comments. That'll be me.