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.
What Would Jesus Do? Uganda, White Supremacy and Right-Wing Evangelical Blood Money
Guest Contributor
White evangelicals have taken their corrupt “traditional family values” racket to Africa and hit paydirt.
Over the past several months, Uganda’s terrorist anti-homosexual bill has been exposed as not just a symbol of African homophobia but a symptom of American evangelical influence-peddling. While the legal battle over same sex marriage has reached epic proportions in the United States, American evangelicals have been quietly wielding “moral” influence over African public policy, spearheading a rabid call for retribution against gays and lesbians in their missionary pilgrimages.
During a March 2009 trip to Uganda, evangelical activists Scott Lively and Don Schmierer warned Ugandan leaders of a gay agenda to “take over the world.” Lively and Schmierer have been roundly condemned by human rights and social justice organizations for galvanizing Ugandan politicians to develop the legislation.
As has been well-documented, the Ugandan legislation would “seek to protect the traditional family by prohibiting any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex.” It would also bar “the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any Government entity in Uganda or any non-governmental organization inside or outside the country.”
The Bill envisions a vast homosexual conspiracy of “sexual activists” seeking to convert youth and adopt children. It would require those knowing of homosexual acts to report them or risk prosecution, and, as a result, seriously jeopardize the country's inroads in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.
The United States and other donor countries have denounced the Bill. Facing the possible loss of international aid, the Ugandan government is considering revising an earlier provision which would have required the execution of known homosexuals.After a firestorm of criticism, the evangelicals have also tried to distance themselves from the flap. However, the Ugandan Bill is part of a larger movement of evangelical puppeteering. The bill exploits anti-gay sentiment and anxieties within African culture about a family structure under siege by “outside” forces, evoking some of the same tensions that African American communities experienced around California's Proposition 8.
Fittingly, the Bill has been bankrolled by conservative foundations and promoted by the far right Christian activist group the Family, a covert network of influential politicians and power brokers. The Family hosts this week's National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., an annual gathering for power brokers from the international community.
Stoking anti-gay sentiment through biblical edict and propaganda about potential homosexual corruption of the African family, evangelicals have used Africa as a springboard for a virulently homophobic agenda that has been intensified by the struggle over gay equal rights in the United States. At the forefront of this movement is President Obama's buddy Rick Warren. Warren's purpose-driven crew is hugely influential in Africa, funding schools, missions and HIV/AIDS treatment while brokering homophobia.Warren and his American counterparts have identified Africa as the new frontier and future of evangelicalism. And as such, Africa is fertile ground for the export of hate and right wing evangelical terrorism. Indeed, evangelicals’ hold on Africa is merely an extension of white supremacist control over African self-determination.
The colonial legacy of African exploitation by the West, exemplified by the undue cultural and economic influence of Western missionaries, has played a pernicious role in the African psyche. To the extent that African nations have been so besieged by Western influence, their embrace of American-bred homophobia, in exchange for American largesse, is simply part of the package of white capitalist patronage.
For this reason, it is inconceivable that African evangelicals would have the same impact on public policy in the West. In a sweeping expose, the progressive think tank Political Research Associates reports that American evangelicals have long been active in promoting anti-gay public policy through their missionary work in Africa. Because “the demographic center of Christianity is shifting from the global North to the global South,” Africa’s influence on the global direction of Christianity has increased.
According to the report, one of the architects of this movement is the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD). IRD is a neo-conservative think tank which has exploited the widespread belief that homosexuality is a western phenomenon that undermines essential African culture values. Scratch the surface and IRD is a radical political organization that has actively opposed the social justice campaigns of mainline Protestant churches and pro-democracy movements in Central America and Africa.
Supported by ultraconservative foundations such as the Scaife and Bradley Foundations, the organization is part of a well-financed network of think tanks and nonprofits, many with tax exempt status granted to religious entities.
The staggering amounts funneled into these organizations dwarfs foundation grants and funding to progressive advocacy organizations. As a result, conservative organizations are better equipped to position themselves as lobbyists and power brokers in both the global and domestic legislative arena.The intersection of dire poverty, underdevelopment and social desperation has historically made African countries vulnerable to the moral profiteering of a bankrupt evangelical movement. Make no mistake, American evangelicals, in their advancement of a terrorist agenda that seeks extermination based on sexuality, will most certainly have blood on their hands.
Far from being an isolated act of extremism, Uganda's shadow evangelical legislature is yet another potent reminder of the global destruction that the Christian right wreaks in the name of Western enlightenment. As the anonymous author of the blog Gay Uganda says, “I am immersed in the middle of a battle for my life. My very life, me and my partner’s. And of all Ugandans that are like me.”
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of BlackFemLens.org and the author of the forthcoming book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and Secular America.
Afro-Netizen on Tuesday, February 09, 2010 at 11:54 AM in Commentary/Opinion, Crime & Punishment, Elections/Campaigns/Voting, Gender, International Affairs, Public Policy, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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