White Privilege in the Americas

By Aisha Brown & Dedrick Muhammad
Guest Contributors

"Usted quien es ... Gánese el baloto para que se cambie el color."

"Who do you think you are?...Go win the lottery and change your color," a metro policeman whispered to Afro-Colombian leader Carlos Rosero, founding member of the Black Community Process (PCN).  Rather than just being an isolated incident of racism in Latin America, this incident gives us a mirror, an insight as to how white privilege prevails in Latin America.

Latin America has a long history of white privilege and white supremecy, including: is colored with white privilege, from its political roots:  U.S. implementation of Jim Crow in the Panama Canal, brutal Dominican dictatorship that erased African presence from its history and its culture, the massacre of hundreds of thousands indigenous Mayans in Guatemala, and blancismento (whitetification) in Argentina (South America) in which governments actively recruited Europeans to emigrate to their nations in order to "whiten" the society of its heavily indigenous and African populations.

To its social implications, white privilege has permeated Latin America's everyday language: "pelo malo" versus "pelo bueno" (good hair vs. bad hair), negrita used as both an insult and "term of endearment" for Latinos with "darker features," and referring to one another by our race or complexion morena, trigueña, indio, zambo.

On March 31, 2009, Grupo Afro Descendiente sponsored a discussion entitled, "White Privilege in Latin America: Myths and Realities" as part of White Privilege Awareness Week.  The panel featured indigenous persons from Peru and Guatemala, an afro descendant from Cuba, a mestiza from Mexico, and an African immigrant from Cote d'Ivoire.  Each panelist shared personal accounts, reflections on their experience with white privilege in Latin America.

What we found was that white privilege began and has been reinforced in society through socio-economic manipulation, cultural jokes/stereotypes, and paternalism often implemented by the Catholic Church and more recently the Evangelical movement.  In every country in Latin America one will find that people of color are often the poorest, least educated, and least empowered/politically engaged in the society.

Even though there are high levels of integration in Latin America, intense segregation still exists.  Often indigenous and Afro descendant populations live apart in communities that are somewhat isolated from the mainstream.  This is prevalent throughout Central and South America among the garifuna and other indigenous Latin Americans.  The country of Nicaragua for example is virtually divided into two countries by the rainforest: the West mostly inhabited by whites and the East populated mostly by people of color.

This segregation is highlighted by the lack of Afro and indigenous presence on Latin American television.  There are very few reflections of people of color in the Latino media.  Sabado Gigante, the most popular variety program throughout all of Latin America is the greatest example of this phenomenon.  With the exception of the occasional reggaeton or bachata artist and/or a futbol player, people of color are largely excluded as members of the cast and even in the audience of the popular program.  Internalized racism of Latin Americans has led our community to deny or reject their African and/or indigenous heritage.  This practice further reinforces the idealization of whites in our society.

Further complicating the issue of white privilege for Latinos is living in a nation who has a different type of racial hierarchy than our homelands.  The identity of Latino has practically become a racial category in this country.   If you do not fit in the U.S. perceptions of Black or white or Asian (yes there are Asian Latinos) you are designated as "Latino."  In the United States white supremacy followed the one drop rule, one drop of Black or Indigenous blood or any visible signs of these ancestries would exclude individuals of white privilege and condemn one to racialized disenfranchisement.  The "one drop" of blood was almost in reverse in Latin America; one drop of European blood or visible characteristics of European ancestry granted one access to some degree of white privilege and wealth, helping open the door for some people of color in Latin America to become part of the white elite of the country.

Like in many capitalist societies, money can buy privilege, but in Latin America it can also buy your whiteness.  For generations Latin Americans have paid to change their race on their identification cards. Purchasing one's whiteness has historically been a common practice for many Latinos of African descent. Yet this practice did not challenge white supremacy rather it found a loophole to gain access to white privilege.   

Our discussion of white privilege and the diverse racial characteristics of our communities allowed us to see that though the white supremacist socio-economic orders of our homelands are different than the ones found in the U.S. the deconstruction of white privilege is something that is needed throughout the Americas.  

Aisha Brown is the  founder of the Global Awareness Project and is an associate of the Racial Wealth Divide Program of the Institute for Policy Studies. Dedrick Muhammad is a coordinator of the Racial Wealth Divide Project.

Comments

[A Real Black Person]

The problem with this site is that it doesn't encourage any diologue. This lack of dialogue allows...people like Aisha Brown and Dredrerick Muhammad to drop outdated arguments about white privledge and not get called to show how that affects anyone in developed nations.

White Privilege is eroding. As globalization progresses, there is evidence that many " white people" stand to lose a significant portion of the wealth accumulated by them in the twentieth century. Globalization has the potential to drive down wages for many jobs that " White People" in the West currently hold.
It might be said that it will be "once again, white people who will benefit from globalization but that thinking is just wrong because only a very small number of "white people" will benefit from decreased wages. The only thing that can be said about the global elite of future is that it will be composed of less white people. This may be because of one undiscussed byproduct of White Priviledge, ENTITLEMENT. Some white people were all for globalization, as long as their standard of living wasn't impacted. Some of them are turning down work in this recession because the offers they're being made require them to downgrade their standard of living. Any non-math/science college degree is essentially no better than a high school degree at this point. These white people can get away with laziness for now--but if the wealth of them and their family continues to decline in the long-term, white privelge will become a thing of the past.

If you wanted to address Latin American racism, they should have posted their speech in Spanish or Portuguese. What makes them think posting it here is going to be of any help when it's Latin American who need to be aware of this information.

This article was incredibly dated and inaccurate for someone who runs a "consultancy".

[Booogie-Mann]

It is true that Latino's discriminate against Blacks. But it's also true that "Latino's" don't consider themselves white. Maybe it started out at the Euro-fication of South America but now there is a completely different culture South of the Border.

You are afraid to confront Latino racism here, rather, you go back to old black vs white to keep it safe.

[NorthsideRasta]

Informative article this is a psychologically imbalanced planet.

[NorthsideRasta]

In the 80's I read about preto malo and it exists today,heck U.S.blacks enjoy criticising hair as much as Afro-Dominicans and others of the African Diaspora. Brazil & fellow South American lands encouraged Nazis to move there like their tribal relatives in the U.S. Read that Eartha Kitt potrayed a Portugeuse woman to account for her dark skin in a movie.In addition to Peter Ustinov a documentary on whites with Black-African ancestry would be unsettling to some whites!That would be cool!