Portuguese and Spanish slavers supplied the Americas with "los Negros," the Blacks. Only those young and strong, impervious to European disease and able to withstand months of torturous living packed in the cruel quarters of slave shipholds survived the middle passage. Those who arrived, stunned and malnourished, lost in a foreign land, were easy prey to the slavers. Removed from a world that had nourished them, left to the mercy of those whose own lack of humanity prevented the recognition of theirs, they were utterly dependent and at the mercy of their captors. Vestiges of racism threaten to dismantle further progress in South America, as they do here. The prophecies of Willie Lynch, a slave owner who created a divisive plan to keep Blacks separate by fostering dissent among them, are coming true. Lynch outlined the differences in physical characteristics among the slaves-skin shade, hair texture, height, etc. By playing up these differences, Lynch promised, "The Black slave, after receiving this indoctrination, shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands." Throughout North and South America, Lynch's plan lives on. Color lines rule, with the predominantly European strains remaining in power, and those of darker skin and crisper hair texture continue to be oppressed. It is a chilling reality that echoes down from the brutal suppression of the native peoples of Chiapas to the continued repression of Mexicans here and in their own country, to the harsh discrimination shown the Blacks of Brazil and America.
The intensification of ethno-racial protest in Latin America has led to the adoption of targeted legislation for Black and indigenous populations, signaling a new moment in race politics in this region. Existing literature has failed to account for this shift either because it held that race was not salient in Latin America, or it presumed that racial hierarchy existed, but that the obstacles to Black mobilization were insurmountable. Argues that the literature must contend with this new reality of “Black politics” in Latin America.
Alvarez,Sonia E. (Editor), Dagnino,Evelina (Editor), and Escobar,Arturo (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
1998
Published:
Boulder, CO: Westview Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Journal Title Details:
p. 459
Notes:
Includes Black movements and the "politics of identity" in Brazil / Olivia maria Gomes da Cunha's "Black Movements and 'Politics of Identity' in Brazil"; and Libia Grueso, Carlos Rosero, Arturo Escobar Grueso's "The process of black community organizing in the southern Pacific coast region of Colombia"
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
xxvi, 264 : ill., map ; 24 cm, Festive rituals, religious associations, and ethnic reaffirmation of Black Andalusians / Isidoro Moreno -- Presence of Blackness and representation of Jewishness in the Afro-Esmeraldian celebrations of the Semana Santa (Eduador).
