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.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
228 p, Poesía negra en Colombia; Based on the author’s thesis (doctoral--Indiana University) entitled La poesía negra en Colombia a través de la obra de Candelario Obeso.
Many Afro-Colombians have been displaced from their lands due to over 50 years of conflict between the government and other armed groups. This conflict has cost untold civilian lives and the Colombian government has done little to protect Afro-Colombians who attempt to stay on their lands in the face of violence. In short, Afro-Colombians got their 40 acres and a mule and their government is doing everything to take them back. In Colombia, signing a free trade agreement would effectively give the Colombia government the US seal of approval to continue to make economic decisions that do not account for the rights or livelihoods of Afro-Colombians. Despite the known impacts on Afrodescendants across the Americas a few Congressional Black Caucus Members have endorsed a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. Passing a Free Trade Agreement despite the discriminatory practices of the Colombian government reveals the truth of the US government's policy: lip service to the protection of human rights but not at the detriment of US corporate interests or free market practices.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C17078
Notes:
Pages 151-162 in Wilbur Schramm and Daniel Lerner (eds.), Communication and change: the last ten years - and the next. University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu. 372 pages.
Special Paper, Kerry J.Byrnes Collection, Special Paper, 7 pages, Technical Report No. 9 consists of an analysis of the data collected to answer the research questions on communication, defined as the maximization of utility in the processing of marketing-related information types, from now on, MRIT. The research questions are based on two objectives: I. To describe and analyze the existing agencies and/or programs for the processing of marketing-related information types; II. To describe use of Cauca Valley mass communication networks.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
352 p, Contains: Papers based on the lectures delivered at the Segundo Coloquio Nacional de Estudios Afrocolombianos on Mar. 18-20, 2004 in Popayán, Colombia./ Includes bibliographical references.
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.
