[Alberto Figueiredo Machado], who is on a working visit to Jamaica, told The Gleaner ahead of Thursday's signing of three other agreements, that Jamaica's tourist product also stands to benefit significantly from the pending non-visa arrangement. He said that Brazil was one of the first countries to have recognised Jamaica's attainment of Independence in 1962, with his compatriots remaining great admirers of Jamaica's athletes and musicians, among other things. Jamaica's Foreign Affairs and îbreign Trade Minister A. J. Nicholson said attention was paid to the greater role of cooperation in the field of energy, with particular emphasis on the role of biofuels as a key instrument of sustainable development, as well as the strengthening of and support to Jamaica's Sickle Cell Programme.
To honor our sacred heritage, to bear the burden and glory of our history, we must self-consciously resume our vanguard role in the midst of the liberation struggles of the world.
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 Caribbean branch of the Toronto-based Global Afrikan Congress (GAC) this week welcomed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's comments on the horrors of slavery, saying he has done much more for the cause than "our own" Black-led governments in the region on the issue. Maxie Fox, a spokesman for the GAC formed in Barbados in 2002, said the GAC and other Afro organizations have been trying for years to persuade regional governments to "have a discourse" on slavery, its effects on Blacks and even reparations, but only Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo, a Hindu, has seen it fit to acknowledge correspondence.
Up to the last minute CIS' Irwine Clare was still awaiting a response to a formal request sent weeks ago to Guyana's Consul General to New York, Bretnold Evans and a subsequent follow-up sent to the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo; and the country's Home Affairs Minister, Gail Texeira. Clare, who flew to Guyana on Wednesday night in hopes that the approval would have been secured at the last minute, voiced disappointment but said he's optimistic that the team will be able to present the forums in the future, given the numerous queries and requests he has received from nationals there for such seminars.
I am referring to prejudice against those who are both Latino and black, whose ancestors arrived on Spanish or Portuguese Slave ships. Living in Los Angeles, it might be easy to think that most Latinos are brown-skinned and of Mexican descent; after all, the majority of our city's Latino population identify as Mexican. Latin American scholars and historians agree that about 95 percent of the Africans forcibly brought to the Americas were bought to what is now Latin America. They are concentrated in the Caribbean, Colombia and Brazil, where half of the population is of African ancestry. And many dark-skinned Latinos also live in the United States. A black Latina wrote recently in Hispanic Magazine that Latinos see blackness as a liability in this country because the Latino community seems to be perpetuating the long-standing racism in South America. In Peru, blacks are sill being used as ornamental images ... chauffeurs valets and servants and blacks in Brazil are still considered marginal members of society. And it was reported that "Batista's skin was not pink enough to gain membership to some Cuban elite clubs."
What even serious individuals must note is that 40 or 50 years ago, the kind of jobs that illegal immigrants migrate towards today are the same positions that African Americans were relegated to. How else can we explain highly educated African Americans, even some with Ph.D's, being forced to work at the post office or as a hotel waiter. The barriers for African Americans were Jim Crow; for Hispanics or Latinos fleeing Mexico, El Salvador, Guatamala or other South American countries, it is the wretched poverty in those countries. For them, such jobs are a "step up" from what they had to accept in their country.
This spring, Professor [Henry Louis Gates Jr.] returns to PBS with "Black in Latin America," a new four-part, four hour series. Focusing on six Latin American countries - Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and Peru - the series explores the influence of the African diaspora on Latin America. On his journey. Gates discovers a shared legacy of colonialism, slavery and people marked by African roots. In his new series. Gates sets out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how their countries acknowledge - or deny - their African past.
Gates notes the striking difference between the numerous statues of European colonists, and even the whitening of the image of Dominicans who have any African heritage in the Dominican Republic, and the statues of Black Haitian independence leaders throughout Haiti.
