PBS Special: BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA

Racism rife in Bogota, Colombia

A sign in a window read "Apartment for rent: but not for a black".

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15487-racism-rife-in-bogota.html

 

Shit like this makes me uncomfortable and makes me not want to leave home. So damn sad and the people actually stand for it.

 

Brazilian Web Site Posts Racist Obama Cartoon

It seems like everyday there's a new website creating a racist image of President Obama.

Now, we present to you Brazilian website Parana Online, which has decided to become one of the many sites to post racist imagery of the president.

In the picture, a hairy monkey ponders: "Obama will have for lunch for baiao-for-two (a traditional rice-and-beans dish associated with Brazil's predominantly-black northeast), steak, ice cream...and bananas, many bananas."

Should we shocked considering Brazil's history of racism? I think not.

Source: http://newsone.com/world/newsonestaff2/brazilian-web-site-posts-racist-obama-cartoon/

 

Racism in Venezuela is alive and well

A TransAfrica Forum delegation in its final press conference in Venezuela, made this its central topic, saying that, yes, racism in Venezuela is alive and well. They mentioned several incidents that seemed fairly obvious to them, such as news commentators referring to their trip as being a "burned" tour - in a reference to their skin color. Also, a prominent opposition spokesperson referred to the delegation as "monkeys" - a fairly common deprecatory term Venezuelans use for people of African descent. Also, the cartoonist of one of the major newspapers, El Nacional's Zapata, caricatured their visit, making obvious negative reference to their racial background.

Examples of such racism, as the TransAfrica Forum delegation witnessed, is indeed quite common. In 2004, the Afro-Venezuelan network had compiled a list of over 1,000 racist comments that have appeared in Venezuela's media over the past year and a half.

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com

 

LOL, some of those dudes have more African in them than me and you and they wouldn't acknowledge that for a million dollars.

What better way to control someone than to tell them, hey we don't have racial differences in our society, we are all the same, yet there is still a distinct segment that is poorly educated, economically disadvantaged, lacking political representation, live in crime ridden neighborhoods and little has changed over time in that social model, but you aren't black so no need to complain about discrimination, be quiet and continue to live in the slums.

No doubt the construct of Latin American society is different from that of societies influenced by British colonialism, nonetheless its funny how the social structures are eerily similar when it comes to distribution of power in said societies over time.

 

It almost seems like they are willfully ignorant or lacking any compunction to be derogatory.

This was a response by someone to the article you mentioned above.
...

It seems the perception of race is so different because of the mixtures, so someone who is mixed would rather ignore part of being black and cling on to another part of their mixture and use it as their social lot, hoping that represents them in a more positive light in these societies.

 

Peruvians are extremely racist

In Peru, a black person can be barred from entering a discotheque in a fashionable neighborhood, unless he or she is accompanied by a wealthy white person.

In Peru, black women are largely shut out from the big foreign-owned chains of retail clothing stores and fast food restaurants.

On TV comedy programs in Peru, the most frequently occurring themes fall into two categories: jokes about homosexuals, and jokes about the skin color of blacks.

Peru has socio-economic gaps along race lines and its inherent, if subtle, discrimination can mean an indigenous woman may only ever work as a maid; a black man may only ever aspire to be a hotel doorman. This is the kind of everyday racism which dictates the lives of many Peruvians.

Racial stereotypes are reinforced on a daily basis in the media. Tabloid newspapers use crude sexual innuendo to describe a black congresswoman in a way they would not dare refer to a white member of parliament.

They compare a black footballer to a gorilla when he loses his temper on the pitch.

One of Peru's main channels, Frecuencia Latina, suspended a popular comedic character called El Negro Mama - a grotesque caricature of a black man, played by an actor wearing a prosthetic nose and lips with a blackened face. The channel pulled the character after the threat of legal action from Lundu, an African-Peruvian civil rights organization.

Sources: Inter Press Service News Agency and BBC News

 

United Nations Decries Racism in Bolivia

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations "deplores racial hate speech and discriminatory acts...and the spread of media organizations and journalists who disseminate racist stereotypes and hate speech against persons from indigenous nations, campesinos, and Afro-Bolivians," according to a new resolution published at the organization's headquarters in Geneva.

"Members of these communities continue to face discrimination and are underrepresented in all organs of public power and decision making" and suffer "systematic violations of human rights," the resolution states. It adds that conflicts and acts of racial violence against the indigenous and campesinos has worsened since 2006.

Source: Bolivia Weekly

 

Anti-Black Racism in Ecuador

Today in Ecuador, employers advertise for job applicants with a "good appearance," a euphemism for White or European characteristics. Landlords openly reject applications from Blacks looking for housing in middle-class areas. In Ecuador, you can see Whites in blackface on television and logos of major companies featuring caricatures of Blacks designed to look more like monkeys than humans.

In rural Black areas, lack of government investment is evident. In the province of Esmeraldas, which has the highest concentration of Afro-Ecuadorians, entire towns are without electricity, schools and other basic services and infrastructure.

"Marginalized, exploited, excluded from national development," is how Oscar Chala describes the daily reality of Ecuador's African descendants. An anthropologist in Chota, the northern valley region with a significant Black population descended from enslaved Africans, he says, "We are terribly vulnerable. We are the greatest mass of poor people in the country."

"The majority [of Blacks live] in misery. The majority is very poor. They are illiterate, unemployed, without health care, education," says Josefina Orovio, a federal official.

Stories, incidents and language that demean Black and indigenous people are an open part of Ecuadorian popular culture. Former professional basketball player Alvaro Aleman says spectators sometimes try to distract Black players by making monkey sounds.

It is in this social climate that Black professional soccer player Hugo Guerron was pulled over by police. Officers refused to believe the 24-year-old owned the new red Volkswagen Golf he was driving. One officer sprayed Guerron in the face with tear gas, partially burning his corneas. A day later, Jose Caicedo, then a Black mid-ranking federal official, was being driven by a chauffeur in a government car when stopped by police. The officers didn't believe Caicedo, 35, was a bureaucrat. They beat him and threw him in jail for five days.

Source: Article written by Lori S. Robinson

 

UN envoys find profound racism in Dominican Republic

Two United Nations experts had said in 2007 that racism is a "profound and entrenched" problem in the Dominican Republic. The UN experts on racism and minorities said in a preliminary report after a week-long visit to the Caribbean country that they had found no official government policy of discrimination.

"There is nevertheless a profound and entrenched problem of racism and discrimination against such groups as Haitians, Dominicans of Haitian descent and more generally against blacks in Dominican society," they said.

Faced with grinding poverty, environmental devastation and widespread unemployment, up to a million Haitians are believed to have crossed illicitly into the neighbouring and far more prosperous Dominican Republic in search of work. The two countries share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

Many Haitian illegal immigrants are employed in sugar fields, factories or on cattle ranches in conditions that human rights groups say often are not far removed from slavery and face periodic mass expulsions.

Dominican authorities also deny Haitian children born in the country the right to Dominican birth certificates, despite an Inter-American Court of Human Rights order to do so.

Relations between the two countries have long been strained by mistrust dating back to Haiti's 1821 occupation of the Spanish-speaking side of the island and the 1937 massacre of up to 30,000 Haitians ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Many were marched off cliffs at gunpoint to die in the sea.

Doudou Diene, the UN Special Rapporteur on racism and related intolerance, and Gay McDougall, the UN Independent Expert on minority issues, said the cultural depth of racism in the hemisphere, the Haitian occupation and racism under Trujillo all contributed.

"This legacy remains today and helps to perpetuate negative and racist perceptions of Haitians, those of Haitian descent, and more generally against blacks in Dominican society," they said in their findings, which they submitted to the UN Human Rights Council.

Source: Reuters

 

The spanish speaking world is hell for Black people...and the US.....has a wide-open border with them.

 

You're right. GQ. The absence of official racial classifications and official racist laws allows individual racism/prejudice to run rampant. And in the absence of official recognition of the issue it's impossible to criminalize or provide redress of grievances.

 

The predominant culture in South America is European, plus the official languages in Latin America are all European, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch, so yes, all of Latin America is part of the Western world, even Haiti.

 

There's a funny saying in Puerto Rico: "Y tu abuela, donde esta?" It is used when a fair-skinned bori comes with that "I'm not black" line. It means "where's your grandmother?" Because everyone in PR would just about fail the one-drop rule (not saying it's valid as a rule, just noting the difference - so anti-one drop police, don't rain down on me).

It's also interesting that many of the racial consciousness movements taking place in Latin America are shaped by the US experience, either felt personally by group members or witnessed through the media. Has a LOT to do with the generally greater racial consciousness of boricuas in NYC/Orlando/etc than the brothers on the island.

 

Paraná is in the South, it's very white and has some Nazi groups, must be from some obscure Nazi website, that didn't even make the news here.

 

Anyway, posting articles about racism in Latin America is pointless, how hard would one have to search to find examples and arcticles about racism in the US?. It proves nothing.

 

The planet is hell for black people. However, I think that there are some positives to the growing Latino presence:

1) the presence of a group that does not see things exclusively along color lines and does not have a 1-drop rule will begin to expand the concept of race in the country beyond the simple black/white dichotomy. That is a plus for mixed-race couples and their children.

2) the presence of non-nationals in the country makes whites realize that ethnicity is also powerful and helps them (to a greater or lesser degree) understand the commonality they share with African-Americans, as compared to other groups. The first time rednecks were all friendly with me (albeit short-lived) was after 9/11. The only danger is that black people not get sucked into US ethno-chauvinism.

 

You're spot on. The official 'Western World' includes ALL of the western hemisphere, Europe (Turkey is the dividing line), and Australia/New Zealand.

 

Isn't Parana where a lot of German war criminals fled after WWII?

 

All three states in the south (Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul) have received German, Italian and Polish populations, same with Argentina. I know there are many nazi groups down there and a friend of mine from Rio Grande do Sul even told me you can find Mein Kampf in any bookstore there, but the thing is, some of the nicest and most open-minded girls I have ever met were from the South, for some reason I attract them like a magnet.