Colonial Kenya had a formal racial hierarchy inscribed in law and maintained through segregation. Europeans occupied the top tier (political power, land ownership, social privilege). Asians occupied the middle tier (commercial power, limited land rights, social restriction). Africans occupied the bottom tier (labour, restricted movement, no political voice). This hierarchy was not informal or customary; it was institutionalised in the Crown Lands Ordinance, in school systems, in hospital wards, and in the spatial organisation of cities.
Spatial Segregation
In colonial Nairobi and other major towns, segregation was territorial. The "European quarter" held the best-positioned residential areas, exclusive clubs, and government buildings. The "Asian quarter" held smaller commercial properties and more densely packed residential areas. The "African quarters" were labour camps and informal settlements on the city margins. These spatial divisions were maintained by law (including who could own or lease property where) and enforced by police.
This segregation was physical, but it was also social. Europeans attended European schools, used European hospitals with European doctors, and socialised in exclusive European clubs. Asians attended separate schools, used separate hospital wards (or private clinics), and were barred from European clubs. Africans attended mission or government schools, used government hospitals, and had no access to European or Asian exclusive spaces.
The Colour of Rights
The hierarchy was colour-coded. Whiteness granted rights: rights to own valuable land, to access education and professional advancement, to participate in political processes. Brownness (Asian) granted middling status: commercial access without political power, some education, but permanent social subordination. Blackness (African) meant labour, legal restriction, and exclusion from power.
This explicit racial ordering shaped what Kenyans believed about each other. It created the assumption that power, competence, and civilization were racially distributed. Even after the legal structure was dismantled, the beliefs persisted.
Colorism and Skin Preference
Colonial Kenya's racial hierarchy is partly responsible for colorism in contemporary Kenya: the preference for lighter skin tones and association of whiteness/lightness with beauty, status, and superiority. This is not unique to Kenya (it appears across much of the formerly colonised world), but it is particularly pronounced in East Africa, where the three-tier hierarchy was so explicit and so deeply institutionalised.
The legacy is visible today in advertising (skin-bleaching products remain common), in dating preferences, in the language used to describe people (dark vs. light-skinned carrying different connotations). It reflects internalised colonial hierarchies that persist decades after independence.
Continuities and Changes
The legal segregation ended with independence. Schools were integrated, hospitals were nominally open to all, and exclusive clubs (though they persist) are legally open to any nationality. Yet the psychological hierarchy persists. African nationalism inverted the hierarchy (African at top, others below), but it did not erase the colour-coded assumption that power and worth are distributed by race.
Asians, who occupied the middle tier, found their status inverted at independence. They were no longer allied with power (the departing British), but marked as exploitative non-Africans. This created a peculiar vulnerability: they had been junior partners in colonialism, not architects of it, yet they were excluded from the post-colonial African identity that nationalism constructed.
The Contemporary Racial Order
Today, Kenya's racial order is more complex and less explicit than the colonial hierarchy. But traces remain. African (specifically Kikuyu or other major ethnic group) identity still carries primary legitimacy. Asian or white Kenyans, even if born in Kenya and holding Kenyan nationality, remain marked as outsiders or returning minorities. Colourism still shapes beauty standards. The three-tier hierarchy, though inverted at the top, has not been fully dismantled.
Understanding this is essential to understanding modern Kenya. The 2007-08 violence was framed as ethnic (Kikuyu vs Luo), but it also targeted Asians and visible minorities, revealing how the colonial racial order still shapes communal anxieties. The exclusion of Asians from certain professional and social circles is not always explicit, but it persists. The sense that true Kenyans are African, and that others (whites, Asians, Arabs) are guests, remains culturally powerful.
See Also
- Racism Against Asians Kenya
- The Question of Belonging
- Asians at Independence
- Post-Election Violence 2007 and Asians
- Kenyan Asians Overview
- The Passport Question
Related
Indians and the Uganda Railway | Indian Traders and the Duka | Asian Kenyans Under Colonial Rule | Asians at Independence | Asian Kenyans Today | Chinese in Kenya | Index