"The children were killed so that they wouldn't grow up and become criminals, that's the philosophy of the people in power here. Being Black is as negative as it gets - it's a lot different from living here in England. I was really surprised when I came to Britain, to see Black people on TV, driving nice cars and dressing in fine clothes - it was a real surprise. In Brazil that would not happen. The only people you would see doing well would be the people with blue eyes and blonde hair." Earlier this year the Brazilian Centre for Expression of Marginalised Populations (CEAPM) planned to sue Transport Minister Eliseu Padilha after ahe made a racist remark about one of Brazil's national heroes, footballer Pele. A Brazilian Embassy spokesman told The Voice that it's not racism but rather the distribution of wealth that puts Blacks on the bottom of the pile. The spokeswoman said: "I am not denying that racism exists in Brazil but racism is a universal thing. The UK is more racist than Brazil. The main problem with my country is an economic/class one - the Black people do not have the economic muscle to climb to the top. The roots of this are deep in our history.
It is therefore in keeping with this understanding and resolve that we are hereby calling upon the black Prime Minister of Barbados, Freundel Stuart, the black Opposition leader of Barbados, Mia Mottley, the black Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxine Mc Clean, the black Anglican bishop of Barbados, John Holder, the Black bishop of the Roman Catholic church, Charles Gordon, the black leader of the labor movement, Sir Roy Trotman, and the black leader of the women's movement of Barbados, Marilyn Rice- Bowen, to issue strong and forthright official statements denouncing the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic.
Dos Santos and Joaquim Barbosa Gomes, a constitutional law professor and lecturer at Columbia University, say racism is more easily detected in the United States than Brazil and is thus harder to combat. Affirmative action's advocates chide dos Santos Silva and other cautious Afro Brazilians, noting that blacks have been "feeling different" since an estimated 3.6 million slaves toiled throughout the country from 1532 to 1850. That estimate does not include the captured Africans who did not survive the brutal journey to Brazil by ship.
Blacks have accused Cubans of taking advantage of their White complexions while simultaneoulsy being "minorities" when it is convenient for them. When opportunities for government contracts and grants for "minorities" are created, Cuban's apply as "minorities." When affirmative action policies are enacted for "minorities," Cuban's are also the beneficiaries. But somewhere down the line these police officers forgot they were "minorities." It took the two retired white officers, who cooperated fully with the FBI, to remind them.
"I don't want to look arrogant, especially with [Cornel West]. But I believe he sat on the side of something he doesn't actually know," [Nancy Morejon] said of the open letter West and 59 other African Americans sent to Cuban President Raul Castro late last year. In it, they accused his government of mistreating civil rights activists and a "callous disregard" for its Black population. "Yes, there is racism in Cuba," Tomas Fernandez Robaina, a prolific writer about the social condition of Black Cubans, told me. The country "engaged in romanticism" when Castro ordered an end to racial discrimination nearly a half-century ago, Fernandez said. "Now we understand it will take more than goodwill to get rid of it, something Americans should know better than Cubans."
Protesters gathered at the corner of 64th Street and 22nd Ave., carrying yellow placards reading "Stop Using Black Men as Target Practice," and "Free Haitian Refugees." "If we can't vote people in the positions to do the right thing then we have no other alternative than to protest," said [Lorraine Goddard], who held a sign that read "No Justice, No Transit Tax." "We demand that the police who have been guilty of killing our youth be prosecuted and put in jail," said Mel Reeves, an organizer with the coalition. "We also demand that they free the Haitian refugees who are being held in the Chrome detention center."
Since I have been thinking about Blacks in Brazil for years, I do know that racial identity is important and perceived differently there. For example, people who consider themselves Black or African American in the U.S. would not automatically be considered Black or African Brazilian in Brazil. People who have brown or lighter skin complexions in Brazil are mulattos, morenos, or some other non Black color category. Approximately half of Brazil's 150 million people are classified as mulatto or Black. "Pe na cozinha" means "foot in the kitchen" and "mulatinho" means "little mulatto." "Foot in the kitchen" refers to someone normally seen as white acknowledging his African ancestry because the kitchen is the kitchen of slavery in which Blacks served whites in all aspects of life.
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.
Arbitrary detention of Haitian refugees should not be part of U.S. foreign policy. Minors should not be held captive, nor should any of the refugees be denied due process or the right to legal representation. In the past, all Haitian refugees were considered economic refugees. Today, even the president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is claiming that he is being persecuted. While the U.S. Special Forces and the State Department are busy chasing Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, on the island nation of Haiti, a powerful and deadly drama is unfolding. Mob killings of reporters and shootouts in broad daylight between mayors and congressmen have become common occurrence.
With the new law instituted, the face of the population of the Caribbean evolved and whites eventually became a minority although they continued to hold their superior social status. According to a book called "Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery," by the early 19th century, less than 5 percent of the population in Grenada, Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, Tobago were white. They accounted for less than 10 percent of the population of Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and the Virgin Islands. Only in the Bahamas, Barbados and Trinidad were more than 10 percent of the population white.
