Ollie A. Johnson III
This chapter explores race and politics in Latin America. Research has confirmed pervasive racial stratification throughout the region. Latin Americans of lighter skin complexions and more European features tend to be in better economic and political positions than Latin Americans of primarily indigenous and African ancestry. Widespread racial discrimination has sparked political organizing and activism which have resulted in legislation to combat racism and create more opportunities for social mobility among Latin America’s most vulnerable citizens. While indigenous social movements and political activism have received abundant attention (see chapter 19, this volume), African-descendant activism has been neglected by political scientists as well as news media. This chapter will highlight some of the most important activist, policy, and legislative initiatives relative to Afro-Latin Americans.1
The chapter has two key points. First, although contested by scholars, race is an indispensably relevant concept for understanding Latin politics. Second, Afro-Latin Americans represent a large population and, though distributed unevenly throughout the region and within specific countries, play central roles as citizens, activists, and politicians. The main argument is that racial prejudice and discrimination contribute to racial inequality and the marginalization of the black populations. Racial oppression of Afro-Latin Americans is partially disguised by myths of racial democracy and harmony. These myths powerfully influence how Latin Americans see themselves racially and in relation to the United States.
In order to focus on outstanding scholarly contributions and dynamic aspects of racial politics, this chapter is divided into five sections. The first section examines how scholars have defined race and debated its meaning. The second section highlights racial ideologies and racism. The history of Latin American slavery and racial oppression has contributed greatly to contemporary racism and racial inequality. The third section briefly outlines racial inequality and gives a sense of the size of the Afro-Latin American population. The next section emphasizes the explicitly racial dimensions of politics in Latin America by describing social movements and activities of black Latin Americans. The fifth section examines government initiatives and public policies addressing black community issues and promoting racial equality. The conclusion highlights the need for additional research. Throughout the chapter, most of the examples and illustrations come from countries with larger black populations. However, it should be noted that the urgent need for research on race and politics applies to all countries and sub-regions of Latin America.
Race is a contested concept. Some scholars believe that the term is inherently unscientific and as a result should not be used. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Naomi Zack have reviewed the problematic definitions and uses of the concept over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They conclude that the concept itself is racist because it divides humanity into groups based on alleged corresponding essences which in fact do not exist. They maintain that the concept cannot and should not be salvaged.2 Other scholars argue that despite past racist uses of the concept, race can be used to understand politics and society. Michael Omi and Howard Winant define race as a social, cultural and political concept that is used to distinguish certain groups of human beings based in part on physical appearance. Omi and Winant emphasize that the social, cultural, and political struggles involved in how racial groups are identified vary by and within countries thereby allowing scholars to use race without anchoring the term in biology or genetics. They also offer the concept of racial formation as a way to focus on how race is created, recreated, and experienced by human beings. According to their perspective, race is central to the human experience and not reducible to class or other “more important” variables.3
In Latin America, six racial groups are most prominent. Whites, blacks, and indians (indigenous people) are the groups which came into contact and interaction during the early period of European colonialism and slavery in the Americas. Mestizos (whites and indians), zambos (indians and blacks), and mulattos (blacks and whites) are the groups classified as the products of racial mixing or miscegenation of these base groups. Large scale immigration from Asia, the Middle East, and other regions has also contributed to Latin America’s racial and ethnic diversity. The above categories represent a basic overview and simplification of the social construction of race. Race, ethnic, and color identities are complicated by the political, social, and cultural diversity of the Latin America. Finally, race is best understood if approached by multiple levels of analysis.4
Officially, few countries in Latin America have consistently conducted racial censuses. As a result, governmental information on racial composition is incomplete. Scholars have conducted surveys and studies which complement official data and form the basis for estimates for different racial or color groups. In addition, political actors often give their estimates and commentary. For example, blacks and indigenous activists regularly charge government officials with undercounting their groups in official studies.5 In her study of race and national censuses, Melissa Nobles shows how the Brazilian national census, carried out regularly since 1872, exemplified dramatic changes regarding race. In some censuses, race or color was not included. In the others, the terms were changed. Prior to the 1991 census, black activists campaigned to encourage Brazilians to identify themselves accurately given fear that respondents were describing themselves in terms that indicated lighter skin tones. Nobles concludes that census-taking and race-counting are not neutral, objective, and scientific inquiries, but rather political processes that respond to and help explain the interests, values, and conflicts of diff erent political actors and constituencies.6
Mestizaje or mestiçagem refers to racial and cultural mixture and distinguishes Latin America from the United States regarding key aspects of race, politics, and culture. The public recognition of this mixing, combining, or blending of people of different racial lineages is widespread. Popular terms like “mestizo,” “zambo,” “mulatto,” “moreno,” and others signify and represent mixture. The legitimacy of mixture also was the basis for cross-racial alliances in social movements, political activities, and electoral campaigns. Most important, these synthetic identities became intertwined with nationalist movements that promoted aspects of indigenous and black culture. Music, dance, food, religion, and other cultural markers associated with oppressed groups are often used as symbols of national identity. Alejandro de la Fuente and Livio Sansone note that racial experiences in Cuba, Brazil, and other Latin American countries made very difficult the emergence of the strict, rigid, and explicit system of racial segregation which characterized the southern United States.7
Peter Wade agrees that mestizaje is central to the Latin American experience. He argues that mestizaje should be seen as both ideology and lived experience. While the concept implies hybridity, sameness, and homogeneity, in a recent comparative analysis of popular music in Colombia, religious practice in Venezuela, and family relations in Colombia and Brazil, the concept is seen to have inclusive and exclusive dimensions. At the same time that the ideology and lived experience can bring people together, they can also reproduce racial-cultural difference within individuals, families, and communities. Consequently, along with mestizaje, related concepts such as blackness, indigenousness, and whiteness are constantly recreated.8
Although mestizaje is popular in much of Latin America, not enough studies have been done to fully understand accepted notions of identity. In Peru, Tanya Golash-Boza conducted an ethnograhic case study in the Afro-Peruvian community of Ingenio and the capital of Lima. She concluded that among her Afro-Peruvian interviewees, there was no eff ective buffer category between blacks and whites. She found that the key distinction was between racial categories and color labels. The former tended to be mutually exclusive group classifications (black, white, or cholo) and the latter individual descriptors that represent a continuum (from lighter to darker) and referred primarily to complexion and hair texture. According to Golash-Boza, despite the lack of an effective mulatto category, in Peru there is a societal preference for lighter skin and straighter hair.9
In contrast to Peru and other Latin American countries, Brazil has more census and government data available by skin color. Approximately one half of the population is white and the other Afro-Brazilian (i.e., brown and black). The other census categories of yellow and indigenous are each less than 1 percent. Edward Telles, following Livio Sansone, notes that there are at least three major ways to understand Brazilian racial classification as color classification. The official census uses five terms: white, brown (pardo), black, yellow, and indigenous. The popular or mass way of classifying by appearance leads to many colors, terms, or labels. The third way is a biracial approach: black (combined brown and black census categories) and white. This approach is used by academics and black movement activists who see more similarities than differences between brown and black. Telles emphasizes that Brazilians think of race in color terms. When asked in an open-ended question about which color they are, Brazilians give many answers. For example, in a widely-cited survey from 1976, 135 colors were given. However, then and now, more than 90 percent of Brazilians use one of seven color terms to identify themselves. Racial identity (self-classified and interviewer-classified) in Brazil is also influenced by and generally weaker than, though not reducible to, other identities like class, gender, education, and region.10
Other countries in Latin America often have less reliable information regarding racial identity. Colombia has a large population of Afro-descendants but exactly how large is unclear. The highest populations of black Colombians are in the Pacific and Atlantic coastal regions (as a percentage of the population) and in the major cities (in absolute numbers).
There is no consensus on the number of Afro-Colombians. The low range of 10 percent stated by the government census bureau is challenged by estimates of 25 percent or more according to academic and activist research. Despite uncertainty regarding their population figures, African descendants have played major roles in Colombian history even if they have not been identified, or identified themselves, in racial terms.11
The ideology or myth of racial democracy lives on in Latin America. This view holds that widespread racial mixture should be a source of pride and that race relations are more harmonious and characterized by less conflict and hostility than race relations in segregated societies such as the United States and South Africa. Furthermore, the myth perpetuates the falsehood that in Latin America racial prejudice and discrimination are minimal. The evident subordinate positions of indians and African descendants are explained as economic divisions attributable to exploitative capitalism and widespread poverty. The paradigm of racial democracy and related notions were initially popularized by Latin American intellectuals such as Gilberto Freyre, José Vasconcelos, José Martí, and Andrés Eloy Blanco. They were critical of the notions of genetic or biological inferiority of blacks and indigenous groups which implied dim prospects for national progress and advancement in the late 1800s and early 1900s.12
The staying power of the myth of racial democracy is due to the fact that it represents different things for different sectors of society; a positive reality for national elites, a goal to be achieved by disenfranchised and marginalized citizens, and a source of national and regional pride for all. Though projecting the racially mixed individual, i.e., mestizo, mulatto, or moreno, as the prototypical citizen, racial democracy did not break completely with the reality and ideal of whitening or whiteness. For many Latin Americans, the ideology of racial democracy became an effective tool for criticizing and delegitimizing black political organizing and advancement eff orts as examples of black racism and inappropriate eff orts to mirror activities of black Americans in the United States.13
As a response and an alternative to racial democracy, the black nationalist or pan-Africanist perspective highlights that the experience of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism, slavery, and racial oppression created a structure of white supremacy in the Americas. For three centuries (1500s–1800s), blacks and indians individually and collectively were directly and explicitly marginalized and exploited. Resistance to slavery and abuse was constant as Africans and their descendants fought against, fled, escaped, survived, and adapted to a brutal reality. The abolition of slavery in the 1800s did not automatically improve the living conditions of formerly enslaved people. By 1900, many political and economic elites had embraced the concept of whitening, believing that European immigration would help them overcome the negative implications of large African-descendant populations. These implications were based on racist notions of white superiority and black inferiority.14
After slavery, European immigration whitened the populations of some countries in Latin America such as Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Uruguay. Countries such as Panama, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic experienced growth of their black populations because of immigration from English-speaking Caribbean islands. By the 1930s, white Latin American leaders began to reject the explicit whitening ideals, but not necessarily the negative black images and stereotypes behind them. While African-derived culture, especially religion, music, and dance, became more accepted and sometimes celebrated, black people were denied equal employment and educational opportunities. In countries like Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Venezuela, the celebration of cultural and racial mixture as central to national unity and identity became prominent.15
Recent studies show that racial prejudice and discrimination continue against browns and blacks. In several national surveys of racial attitudes, Brazilians have consistently more negative attitudes toward browns and blacks than whites.16 In terms of personal attributes such as intelligence, honesty, education, and manners, whites are ranked higher. In terms of professions, whites rank higher. Even when experiments are done to remove possible eff ects of class, Brazilians are racially prejudiced against browns and blacks. When Brazilians are asked who they want their daughter to marry, they consistently chose a white male over a brown and black male regardless of occupation; thereby establishing in this instance that race or color is more determinative than class. Stanley Bailey highlights that most Brazilians believe that racial prejudice and discrimination exist in Brazilian society.17
Elisa Larkin Nascimento defines racism as “a complex system of psycho-social, cultural, economic and political destitution, depriving a people of their history, identity, dignity, and basic humanity.”18 Telles notes that racial discrimination in Brazil involves formal and informal acts with major negative consequences for Afro-Brazilians. Because negative stereotypes against blacks and browns are pervasive, preferential treatment within the family, school system, labor market, and law enforcement combine to give advantages to whites and disadvantages to Afro-Brazilians. The myth of racial democracy often disguises racial discrimination and makes it more difficult for victims to organize against it.19
Racism manifests itself regularly in Latin America. There are many more qualitative case studies of racism in Latin America than national or sub-national public opinion surveys. However, the specific acts, institutions, and structures vary by country. In the Dominican Republic, Ernesto Sagás and David Howard highlight that anti-Haitianism has been a dominant racist ideology in the Dominican Republic since the mid-1800s and remains a vital force in contemporary Dominican society. The ideology has been used politically by Dominican elites to discriminate against Haitians, Haitian-Dominicans, and dark-skinned Dominicans. This nationalist ideology is so powerful that many Afro-Dominicans subscribe to it. A scandalous example of the ideology at work involved the racist attacks against popular Afro-Dominican politician and presidential candidate Jose F. Peña Gomez during his presidential campaigns in the 1990s. Peña Gomez and other Dominican leaders have been hesitant to strongly and directly denounce the racism of anti-Haitianism.20
Mark Sawyer, Yesilernis Peña, and Jim Sidanius recently conducted innovative research in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic and similarly concluded that racial prejudice against blacks was extensive. Despite distinct national political regimes, civil societies, and government relations with the United States among the three islands, survey research indicated that whites have the highest and blacks the lowest social status. These scholars state that despite widespread interracial marriage and miscegenation, the islands clearly represent Caribbean versions of Latin American color hierarchy or pigmentocracy. Accordingly, they find little evidence for the notion that they have less racial prejudice than the United States.21
Venezuela has a reputation of being one of the most racially blended countries in Latin America. Many Venezuelans consider their country a “racial democracy” where miscegenation and mixing over time have created harmonious race relations. That image is incomplete. In Venezuela, as in other Latin American “racial democracies,” the ideology of mestizaje rests on the historical reality of racial violence, i.e., European colonialism, slavery, and forced racial mixing by rape. Scholars have documented a series of negative stereotypes associated with indigenous and African descendants in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez Frias and some of his Afro-Venezuelan political appointees have been attacked regularly in strong racist terms by the opposition. Their brown complexions, facial features, hair textures, and humble origins have all been ridiculed by critics as markers of unfitness for office.22
Ariel E. Dulitzky argues that most Latin American governments have been in complete denial regarding the widespread racial discrimination and racism in their countries. He emphasizes that concepts such as racial democracy, racial melting pot, racial harmony, and mestizaje to describe race relations have misrepresented reality and enabled leaders to compare their societies favorably to the United States where brutal, violent, and legal segregation held sway for most of the twentieth century. Dulitzky and other scholars suggest that Latin American elites have resisted thorough research and data collection because they know that the results would reflect poorly on their countries and the region.23
Silvio Torres-Saillant believes that racial and ethnic prejudice remains severe in Latin America and the Caribbean. This prejudice results in policies and practices that devastate indigenous and African-descended people. Given the enormity of the problem, his view emphasizes that scholars should feel a moral urgency in their investigations.
White supremacy has been the conceptual glue that holds together the cultural logic of spoliation, discrimination, compulsory invisibility, and genocide in the hemisphere. Whether by preserving the exclusionary discourse of monoethnicity in the face of observable ethnic diversity or by paying lip service to pluralism while promoting a homogenous picture of the visage of the nation, Eurocentric formulations of national culture and the seduction of the Caucasian ideal have given currency to schemes of thought that endanger the mental and physical well-being of distinct groups among the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.24
Several scholars have noted the similarities between Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico regarding race and politics. Despite dramatic differences in regime type, the three societies, as Ernesto Sagás puts it, “are ruled by white or light-skinned elites.”25 In their major qualitative studies, Sagás and Howard also note that the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean demonstrate that Latin American societies with large racially mixed populations can also have significant racial prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination against darker citizens of their countries. Leaders of these Caribbean and Latin American societies often celebrate racial harmony and a lack of racial segregation despite centuries of racial slavery, racist Spanish colonial rule, and contemporary negative attitudes about blacks.26
Given the reality of substantial racial discrimination and racial inequality in Latin America, many countries in the region should be described as color hierarchies and pigmentocracies. White and lighter-skinned Latin Americans are over-represented among the region’s political, economic, and cultural elites. Indigenous and black people are over-represented among the region’s poor and marginalized classes. Black Latin Americans have enjoyed great success as athletes and musicians. On the other hand, it is rare to see dark-skinned Afro-descendants as core members of a national government’s economic policy-making team or as prominent members of a country’s leading corporations or business associations. Despite long-term and widespread miscegenation and interracial marriage, blackness is still stigmatized as negative, ugly, and unworthy while whiteness connotes beauty, intelligence, and trustworthiness.27
Although Latin American governments do not uniformly collect comprehensive census data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, or color, the available information confirms that poverty and inequality remain significant problems. In 2010, nearly one third of Latin Americans were poor and 13 percent were extremely poor. In addition, the poorest sectors of Latin American society represented a small fraction of overall income and wealth. Latin America remains one of the most unequal regions in the world. Latin American governments are still not investing enough resources in quality education for young people and other areas of social spending to decisively reduce the levels of poverty and inequality. This statement does not deny the recent attention that some countries have given to the theme of social inclusion and progress with equity. Some national governments have collaborated with the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and other institutions to understand how social and economic stratification affect the group that has received the least study: Latin Americans of African ancestry.28
African descendants represent approximately 30 percent of the region’s population. Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic have the largest African-descendant populations. Afro-descendants are also estimated to be at least 5 percent of the population in Panama, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay. Overall, Afro-Latin Americans are poorer and less educated. They also have more difficulty accessing decent housing, employment, and health care. Recent statistical studies confirm that racial inequality is extensive and that blacks and indigenous groups are poorer than whites and mestizos. The countries with more accessible racial and ethnic census data are Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. Over the past three decades, case studies of the black experience in Latin America have confirmed that poverty, inequality, and major community and personal difficulties are common features of life. Despite the tremendous demographic, geographic, political, and social diversity of the region, African descendants share the experiences of racial discrimination, economic marginalization, cultural exploitation, and political under-representation.29
Edward Telles has demonstrated that Brazil remains deeply racially unequal because of hyperinequality, a discriminatory glass ceiling, and a racist culture. These three factors have intertwined and conspired since the abolition of slavery in 1888 to recreate racial hierarchy. Telles shows how racial discrimination against browns and blacks coexists with class discrimination against working class and poor Brazilians to limit educational, employment, and other opportunities for social mobility. Simultaneously, Telles affirms that Brazilians have high degrees of interracial socio-cultural sociability. These visible measures of horizontal relations do not invalidate the compelling evidence that racism, racial discrimination, and racial inequality remain major features of Brazilian race relations.30
Cuba is unique in Latin America because the country made substantial progress toward creating a more racially egalitarian society. The first three decades of the Cuban Revolution witnessed the elimination of racial segregation, the making of racial discrimination illegal, and the provision of unprecedented education and employment opportunities and health care access to the entire population. To some degree, these Cuban advances were reversed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the interruption of international trade, aid, and subsidies to the Cuban economy. The special period of economic crisis confirmed that the revolution did not defeat racial hierarchy. In fact, explicit racial discrimination returned in many forms.31 Mark Sawyer’s concept of “inclusionary discrimination” and ethnographic and survey research in Cuba highlight the complex Cuban reality where “blacks had formal and symbolic inclusion in the state at the same time that a significant racial gap remained between blacks and whites.”32
In the last 30 years, Afro-Latin Americans have achieved impressive gains in social movement activism, political organization, and mobilization. Black leaders and groups have publicly criticized racial prejudice, discrimination, and inequality in strong terms. This reality contrasts with the period of the early 1970s for which Anani Dzidzienyo observed minimal black group political activity. Many blacks suffered under and fought against authoritarianism in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. However, black activism has not been limited to exclusively black or majority black efforts. African descendants have taken their concerns into labor unions, community associations, civic organizations, churches, political parties, and social movements where they have been a distinct numerical minority.33
Black social movement organizations exist in every sub-region (Caribbean, Central America, Andean, and Southern Cone) and practically every country of Latin America. According to Marta Rangel, these organizations have been successful to varying degrees in denouncing racism and racial inequality and demanding more educational and economic opportunities. In addition, these groups have organized at the local, state, national, and international levels and lobbied governments for resources, specific legislation, and public policy. As a result of their efforts, Afro-descendants are no longer invisible in Latin America. At the same time, many of these groups are not well organized and structured. Some have serious disconnections between leaders and members and between the organizations and their respective broader communities. The positive impact of recent black activity has varied greatly by region and country.34
The government of Cuba provides an example of hostility to independent black political activity. From independence to the Cuban revolution, Afro-Cubans had created their own social, cultural, and political organizations to advance their cause. While most blacks supported the advances of the revolution, some black leaders wanted to engage in a broader discussion and effort to root out white racism. They reasoned that blacks must be allowed to organize among themselves to protect and defend their collective interests in addition to the government’s anti-racist and pro-equality measures. Carlos Moore became an advocate for this view when he launched his public, and later scholarly, critique of the Cuban Revolution. Moore maintained that despite Fidel Castro’s revolutionary rhetoric and policies, the Cuban leadership was unwilling to engage in racial power-sharing.35
Cuba is experiencing increasing internal and external pressure to open its one-party system and allow independent voices and organizations to publicly criticize the government and offer alternatives. Afro-Cubans are especially active in these efforts in the area of race and culture. In recent years, rappers, visual artists, writers, intellectuals, and activists have been critical of resurgence racism and racial inequality. Rap lyrics, paintings, writings, and other efforts have challenged the negative stereotypes of black men and women that have become part of the racist explanation for why blacks are not doing well. Cuban authorities are aware of this new racism and allowing more media coverage of Afro-Cuban events and concerns.36 Despite publicly recognizing racial discrimination as a problem, Cuba’s communist party and government are not prepared to engage proposals by Afro-Cubans or other sectors that challenge their monopoly on political power.
There is growing research on how Afro-Brazilians have struggled for racial and social change in their country. Gaining more visibility than other Afro-Latin American activists, black leaders and organizations have worked to persuade Brazilian political leaders and the society at large to recognize the urgency of fighting against racial inequality and affirming the legitimacy of Afro-Brazilian demands for social, economic, and political inclusion. Since the 1970s, Afro-Brazilian activists have participated in the transition to democracy, creation of new political parties, reemergence of the labor movement, and revitalization of civil society. In each of the last three decades, blacks have protested, lobbied, and succeeded in gaining more space in the political arena.37
In recent decades Afro-Colombian activists have become increasingly critical of their position in Colombian society. In the last three decades, leaders have organized activist groups such as Cimarron, a primarily urban group dedicated to struggle against racial discrimination and inequality. Other groups such as the Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), based in Pacific coast black communities, have fought to defend their traditional homes, communities, and lands from government or business takeover. Both groups have framed their activism as part of a national and transnational human rights struggle. The effect of these organizing efforts has been to bring together Afro-Colombians from diff erent regions to determine how they can work together.38
Since the transition to civilian rule in 1979, Afro-Ecuadorian leaders have been active in creating social, cultural, and political groups to organize and mobilize blacks for social change. These groups are especially present in Quito, the capital of the country, and the other areas with the strongest concentrations of African descendants: Esmeraldas, the Chota Valley, and Guayaquil. Despite a growing number of groups, there has been less success in maintaining active memberships and programs. There has also been great difficulty in creating strong national organizations. This challenge in organizing reflects the bleak Afro-Ecuadorian socio-economic situation. Many blacks live in poverty and extremely difficult conditions.39 The Catholic Church, through its Comboni missionaries, has been active in working with black communities and cultivating black leadership. The Afro-Ecuadorian Cultural Center and the Afro-Ecuadorian Pastoral Department, created in the early 1980s, have served black communities by promoting educational opportunities and becoming meeting places for black organizers. Since 1982, the cultural center has published Palenque, a quarterly newsletter that provides one of the rare media sources in the country for news and views on Afro-Ecuadorians.
Afro-Central Americans have intensified their organizing efforts within their countries and on a region-wide basis. In Costa Rica, Epsy Campbell and Edwin Patterson have combined activism and electoral politics. Both served in the Costa Rican legislature as representatives from the Citizens Action Party. Patterson has worked as a business leader on the Atlantic coast and organized a chamber of tourism. Blacks organized to promote economic development and defend their community lands against government and business projects that did not take them into consideration. In Nicaragua, the revolutionary Sandinista government and the post-Sandinista governments have struggled in their attempts to incorporate the Atlantic region with large indigenous and black communities into the national community. These struggles resulted primarily from the national elite’s lack of familiarity with and respect for these communities. Juliet Hooker has argued that the elite’s emphasis on mestizo nationalism has not fully acknowledged the demands for regional autonomy by indigenous and black communities of the Atlantic coast. In Honduras, Roy Guevara and Celeo Alvarez have led organizing efforts among the black communities. As president of ODECO, Alvarez has been a highly visible Garifuna leader working to organize African descendants on a national, regional, and continental basis.40
Celeo Alvarez is president of the Central American Black Organization (ONECA), which is based in Honduras. The group has representatives from all Central American countries and advocates greater funding for education, health care, economic development and other issues affecting black populations. ONECA has been successful in lobbying international organizations such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and Organization of American States, to support the group’s policy agenda.41
Black leaders from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America have begun to meet more frequently and attempted to institutionalize communication and collaboration. Romero Rodriguez, the President of Mundo Afro, a leading black group based in Montevideo, Uruguay, has played a central role in organizing blacks in Latin America. For the last 20 years, Rodriguez has traveled throughout South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States building bridges between black groups, attending conferences, and making the case for international black Latin American cooperation and organization. He is also leader of the Strategic Alliance of Afrodescendants from Latin America and the Caribbean. These efforts were energized by the Latin American meetings in 2000 and 2001 in preparation for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance, held during September 2001 in Durban, South Africa. Afro-Latin American leaders realized that in addition to lobbying their own governments to participate effectively in the conference and embrace formally and enthusiastically an anti-racist political agenda, they had to work together to share information, experiences, and resources to strengthen their work within and across their individual countries.42
Few blacks have been elected to national political office or appointed to high-level government positions. In this regard, the rise of black women in Latin America politics represents an important development. Although they are still under-represented among black politicians and leaders, Afro-Latinas are increasingly making their voices heard throughout the region. Benedita da Silva represents the State of Rio de Janeiro in the Chamber of Deputies of the Brazilian Congress. She is the most visible black woman politician in Brazilian history and remains a tireless fighter for class, race, and gender reform. In Colombia, Senator Piedad Córdoba Ruíz is likely the most high profile Afro-Colombian politician. Her fight for peace, social justice, and an end to the violence in her country has led to her kidnapping and other traumas.43
Epsy Campbell Barr is a former member of the Costa Rican parliament and a leader of the Citizens Action Party. Involved in numerous progressive struggles within Costa Rica, Campbell is also the leader of the Network of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American women. In this capacity, she travels throughout the region speaking out against racism and sexism. Alexandra Ocles, a leading Afro-Ecuadorian activist served in the national assembly from 2007 to 2009 and recently (2010–2011) was a member of Presidenfhave gained a much better understanding oft Rafael Correa’s cabinet as minister of the Secretariat of Peoples, Social Movements, and Citizen Participation. These four black activists and politicians, along with black women groups throughout Latin America, have worked in recent decades to place the issues directly aff ecting Afro-Latinas on the political agenda.44
In their historic and contemporary struggles against racism and racial inequality, Afro-Latin Americans have petitioned their national governments for protections and respect for their rights as citizens and human beings. Such support was rarely forthcoming. Furthermore, existing legal protections against racial discrimination were often ignored. Recent eff orts to achieve collective group rights within a multicultural citizenship framework have not been as successful for blacks as they have been for indigenous groups. Juliet Hooker explains this difference by arguing that national elites have conceptualized indigenous people as representing a distinct cultural group. Markers of this distinctiveness included indigenous language, long-term occupation of rural lands, and maintenance of traditional customs and authority. Blacks, on the other hand, were seen in more racial than ethnic terms. Thus, to the extent that blacks resembled indigenous groups, the greater their chances of achieving collective group rights. Such was the case in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua where blacks achieved the same rights as indians. In Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador, blacks gained limited collective rights compared to indigenous groups. Hooker concludes that explanatory factors such as black population size, degree of black movement organization, and level of black identity consciousness were less relevant.45
Overall, blacks in Brazil may have been more successful than other Afro-Latin Americans in persuading government at the local, state, and national levels to embrace initiatives, adopt legislation, and implement public policies of a pro-black nature. As a result of black demands and activism, Brazil has a 25-year history of important experiments in race, politics, and government. Numerous race-specific initiatives have been undertaken in recent decades. Four major race-specific public policies have been passed by government bodies and deserve special attention.
First, in cities and states around the country, Afro-Brazilian leaders were able to persuade mayors, governors, and other elected officials to create black councils or government agencies to focus specific attention on the concerns of black citizens and communities. In the 1980s and 1990s, municipal and state governments of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other regions created institutions to call attention to racial discrimination, racial inequality, and other specific concerns of Afro-Brazilians. These pro-black government initiatives raised the profile of black government appointees and the issues they raised. However, these spaces were routinely under-funded and under-staffed in relation to overall government budgets and the enormity of the problems facing Afro-Brazilians. Still, most importantly, black leaders gained political, governmental, and public experience in exploring how government resources could be brought to bear on improving black living conditions.46
The second successful race-specific policy is affirmative action in higher education and government employment. Since 2001, at least 80 public universities, colleges, and technical institutes have created admissions policies (including racial quotas) to encourage increased enrollment of Afro-Brazilian students. This development has created tremendous controversy among political and academic elites. Brazil’s public institutions of higher learning are the country’s most prestigious and well-funded. They have also represented government higher education subsidies for largely white, middle- and upper-class families. Graduates of these institutions usually go on to occupy the most prestigious and powerful positions in the national government. According to some scholars and activists, race-specific affirmative action represents a threat to the unequal distribution of power and privilege in the country.47
The most controversial element of the new Brazilian affirmative action policies can be identified as racial quotas. These quotas identify specific numbers or percentages to be reserved for black and brown applicants. There is less hostility directed toward quotas for public high school, indigenous, disabled and other allegedly more deserving and disadvantaged students, graduates and job applicants. Critics offer several key reasons why racial quotas are not the best means of promoting social mobility for Afro-Brazilians. It is argued that racial quotas are inappropriate in Brazil because the country does not have strong racial cleavages and identities. Another critique holds that racial quotas are illegal under the country’s constitution in that they treat Brazilians differently based on race. A third critique is that they will ultimately be ineff ective.48 So far, racial quotas have been successful in placing more Afro-Brazilian students in higher education and expanding the national debate over racial inequality.
The third major initiative related to race and politics comes from the national government. In 2003, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva created the Special Office for the Promotion of Racial Equality [Secretaria Especial de Políticas de Promoção da Igualdade Racial-SEPPIR] by decree. The small office has a large mission, i.e., the coordination of the government’s efforts to promote racial equality in the government itself and the larger society. To increase the visibility of this mission, the office was given ministerial status by President Lula. Thus, the presidents of SEPPIR are cabinet ministers. The first three presidents have been Afro-Brazilian members of the Workers Party: Matilde Ribeiro (2003–2007), Edson Santos (2008–2010), and Luiza Bairros (2011–present). SEPPIR is in many ways similar to the black councils founded in the 1980s and 1990s. SEPPIR has the ability to highlight the theme of racial inequality and other black community concerns but it has a small budget and has to persuade other government officials and bureaucrats to take action.49
The fourth major initiative also occurred in 2003, the first year of President Lula’s administration. In that year, the national congress passed Law 10,639 making the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture obligatory in elementary and secondary education throughout the country. The passage of this law represented the achievement of black activists’ demand that the black experience be integrated into the school curriculum in a meaningful way. These activists had argued that the myth of racial democracy with its emphasis on racial mixing, harmonious race relations, and inter-racial cordiality had historically minimized racial oppression and black resistance. Law 10,639 was a shock to the Brazilian educational bureaucracy. Supporters of the law within and outside the government have been leading efforts to produce teaching materials, train teachers, explain the law to skeptics, and build support for the law at the local, state, and national levels of the country’s educational system. Proponents have conceptualized the law as a public policy emphasizing ethnic and racial diversity. In this way, they see the law as a new public initiative recognizing diversity and promoting racial equality similar to SEPPIR and affirmation action.50
Scholars have gained a much better understanding of racial politics in Latin America during the last three decades. Afro-Latin American struggles against racism and racial inequality have been documented. Survey research is beginning to show how racial attitudes manifest, support, or challenge racial prejudice. Ethnographic studies remain central to illuminating how racial identities and ideologies influence individual behavior. Nonetheless, most black political participation has been neglected by researchers. This neglect contributes to an incomplete understanding of Latin American politics. New political demands for laws, policies, and practices promoting racial equality should lead scholars to expand and intensify their investigations into Latin America’s complex political reality.
Venezuela and Colombia are countries that should spur scholars to do more case studies, comparative analysis, and theoretical reflection on race and politics. Because even when politic activity is not explicitly about race, political developments usually have racial consequences; suggesting, of course, that race is relevant. The 1998 Venezuelan presidential election of Hugo Chavez Frias has led to major political, class, and racial polarization. The Bolivarian Revolution led by Chavez has challenged the traditional political parties and ruling elites. The Chavez administration has attacked poverty, inequality, and is committed to a radical redistribution of wealth and resources. In power for more than a decade, President Chavez has pursued egalitarian social policies and opened up new opportunities for mass political participation. Many black groups have supported Chavez as Afro-Venezuelans are over-represented among the poor and as victims of racial discrimination. Black leaders argue that President Chavez has affirmed his indigenous and African heritage and been receptive to their demands that the Revolution recognize the specificity of the Afro-Venezuelan situation. At the same time, black leaders believe that government officials should do more to support pro-racial equality policies.51
Colombia is the second largest country in South America with a population of more than 40 million. The country has suffered from an internal armed conflict for more than four decades. The violence by repressive government forces, leftist guerillas, and conservative paramilitary groups has killed thousands and displaced as many as three to four million Colombians. Afro-Colombians, generally believed to represent the second largest number of Afro-descendants in a Latin American nation, have historically and increasingly been victims of this violence and displacement. Scholars and activists emphasize that the violence usually involves powerful forces seeking access to and control of resources and land occupied by Afro-Colombians. Colombian and international business elites have been actively displacing Afro-Colombians to develop mining, agriculture, and development projects.52
In 1991, a new Colombian constitution was approved that recognized Colombia as pluriethnic and multicultural. Throughout the 1990s to the present, Afro-Colombians have worked for implementation of their constitutional rights and Transitory Article 55 and Law 70. This unprecedented ethno-racial legislation grants collective land rights to rural Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific Coast, development aid, and education assistance. The new legislation also grants Afro-Colombians two seats in parliament and affirmative action in education. These achievements have coincided with a proliferation of black activism and a continuation of black suffering. Internally displaced Afro-Colombians remain traumatized by the ongoing violence and lack of adequate relief and support efforts.53
Most analysts of Venezuelan and Colombian politics do not address the question of race or the role of Afro-descendants. Such a perspective limits understanding of topics central to political analysis: violence, conflict, distribution of power and resources, identities of elites and masses, political representation, among others. A non-racial perspective reinforces the myths of racial democracy and harmony and camouflages the disproportionate suff ering of Afro-Venezuelans and Afro-Colombians. As a further result, racism and racial inequality are seen as ambiguous. Colombia and Venezuela, like most countries in the region, do not have reliable demographic information on their national populations disaggregated by race, ethnicity, or color. Basic questions involved in understanding racial politics cannot be answered with full confidence.
Recognizing important similarities in the living conditions of their people throughout the region, Afro-Latin American leaders have met regularly since the 1970s to discuss issues that unite them and formulate strategies and tactics for region-wide collective action. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, these leaders met in Colombia, Brazil, Panama, and Ecuador.
Twenty years later black legislators met in Brazil, Colombia, and Costa Rica and formed a symbolic black parliament to begin a process of uniting black political leaders throughout the hemisphere. These transnational congresses, meetings, and gatherings were historic efforts to internationalize the struggle against racism, inequality, poverty, and ideologies and practices plaguing Afro-descendant communities.54
The comparisons between racial politics in the United States and Latin America and between indigenous and black experiences are worth pursuing in the spirit of ascertaining and understanding the living conditions of different racial and ethnic groups. Is the United States becoming more like Latin America? Is Latin America becoming more like the United States? These are serious questions given the growing public acceptance of multiracial identities in the United States and affirmation action policies in Brazil. Although the challenges related to studying race and politics in Latin America are substantial, there remains a need to collect and analyze socio-economic and political data by race, ethnicity, and color to improve understanding of politics in Latin America.
1 “Afro-Latin Americans” will be used interchangeably with African descendants, Afro- descendants, Latin Americans of African ancestry, and blacks unless otherwise noted. “Blacks” refers to blacks and browns or blacks and mulattos unless otherwise noted. For an alternative formulation in the case of Brazil, see Stanley R. Bailey, Legacies of Race: Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009) and Stanley R. Bailey, “Public Opinion on Nonwhite Underrepresentation and Racial Identity Politics in Brazil,” Latin American Politics and Society 51:4 (2009): 69–99.
2 Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
3 Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1994); Howard Winant, The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001).
4 Norman Whitten, Jr., “Los paradigmas mentales de la conquista y el nacionalismo: La formación de los conceptos de las “razas” y las transformaciones del racismo”, in Ecuador racista: Imagenes e identidades, eds. Emma Cervone and Fredy Rivera (Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO, 1999); Peter Wade, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America (London: Pluto Press, 1997); George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
5 Andrews; Jhon Anton, Alvaro Bello, Fabiana Del Popolo, Marcelo Paixão, and Marta Rangel, Afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe: del reconocimiento estadístico a la realización de derechos (Santiago, Chile: United Nations Publications, 2009).
6 Melissa Nobles, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000).
7 Alejandro de la Fuente, “Myths of Racial Democracy: Cuba, 1900–1912,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 34, No. 3 (1999): 39–73; Livio Sansone, Blackness with Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
8 Peter Wade, “Rethinking Mestizaje: Ideology and Lived Experience,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 37(2005): 239–257; Peter Wade, “Afro-Latin Studies: Reflections on the field,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (April 2006): 105–124.
9 Tanya Golash-Boza, “Does Whitening Happen? Distinguishing between Race and Color Labels in an African-Descended Community in Peru,” Social Problems, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2010): 138–156.
10 Edward E. Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004); Sansone, 2003.
11 Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Fernando Urrea-Giraldo, “La población afrodescendiente en Colombia,” Pueblos indigenas y afrodescendientes de América Latina y el Caribe: información sociodemgráfica para políticas y programas (Santiago, Chile: United Nations Publications, 2006), 219–245.
12 De la Fuente; Michael George Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
13 Hanchard, 1994; Elisa Larkin Nascimento, O Sortilégio da Cor: Identidade, raça e gênero no Brasil (São Paulo, Brazil: Summus, 2003).
14 Leslie B. Rout Jr., The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Kathryn Joy McKnight and Leo J. Garofalo, eds., Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550–1812 (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2009).
15 Andrews; Elisa Larkin Nascimento, O Sortilégio da Cor: Identidade, raça e gênero no Brasil (São Paulo, Brazil: Summus, 2003).
16 Alberto Carlos Almeida, A Cabeça do Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2007); Alberto Carlos Almeida, “Core Values, Education, and Democracy: An Empirical Tour of DaMatta’s Brazil,” in Democratic Brazil Revisited, eds. Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 232–256; Cleusa Turra and Gustavo Venturi, eds., Racismo Cordial: A mais completa análise sobre o preconceito de cor no Brasil (São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Άtica, 1995).
17 Bailey, 2009.
18 Elisa Larkin Nascimento, Pan-Africanism and South America: Emergence of a Black Rebellion (Buffalo, NY: Afrodiaspora, 1980), 8.
19 Telles, 2004; Hanchard, 1994; France Winddance Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Minority Rights Group, No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today (London: Minority Rights Publications, 1995).
20 Ernesto Sagás, Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000); David Howard, Coloring the Nation: Race and Ethnicity in the Dominican Republic (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001).
21 Mark Q. Sawyer, Yesilernis Peña, and Jim Sidanius, “Cuba Exceptionalism: Group-based Hierarchy and the Dynamics of Patriotism in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba” Du Bois Review, 1: 1 (2004): 93–113; Yesilernis Peña, Jim Sidanius, and Mark Sawyer, “Racial Democracy in the Americas: A Latin and U.S. Comparison,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 6 (2004): 749–762; Jim Sidanius, Yesilernis Peña,, and Mark Sawyer, “Inclusionary Discrimination: Pigmentocracy and Patriotism in the Dominican Republic,” Political Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2001): 827–851.
22 Jesús María Herrara Salas, “Ethnicity and Revolution: The Political Economy of Racism in Venezuela,” Latin American Perspectives, 141, Vol. 32, No. 2 (March 2005): 72–91.
23 Ariel E. Dulitzky, “A Region in Denial: Racial Discrimination and Racism in Latin America,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos, eds. Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 39–59; Jesús Chucho Garcia and Nirva Rosa Camacho, eds., Comunidades Afrodescendientes en Venezuela y America Latina (Caracas, Venezuela: Alcaldía de Caracas, 2002).
24 Silvio Torres-Saillant, “Racism in the Americas and the Latino Scholar,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos, eds. Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 281–304.
25 Sagás, 2000, 128.
26 Sagás, 2000; Howard, 2001.
27 Carlos Moore, Tanya R. Sanders, and Shawna Moore, eds., African Presence in the Americas (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1995); Minority Rights Group.
28 ECLAC, Social Panorama of Latin America (New York: United Nations Publications, 2010).
29 Alvaro Bello and Marta Rangel, “La equidad y la exculsion de los pueblos indigenas y afrodescendientes en America Latina y el Caribe,” Revista de la CEPAL 76 (April 2002), 39–53; Marta Rangel, “La población afrodescendiente en América Latina y los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio. Un examen exploratorio en países selecionados utilizando información censal,” in Pueblos indígenous y afrodescendientes de América Latina y el Caribe: información sociodemográfico para políticas y programas (Santiago, Chile: United Nations Publications, 2006); Jhon Anton, Alvaro Bello, Fabiana Del Popolo, Marcelo Paixão, and Marta Rangel, Afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe: del reconocimiento estadístico a la realización de derechos (Santiago, Chile: United Nations Publications, 2009); Andrews, 2004; Margarita Sanchez and Maurice Bryan, with MRG partners, Afro-descendants, Discrimination and Economic Exclusion in Latin America (London: Minority Rights Group, 2003).
30 Telles, 2004; Robin E. Sheriff, Dreaming Equality: Color, Race, Racism in Urban Brazil (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
31 Alejandro de la Fuente, A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
32 Mark Q. Sawyer, Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 176.
33 Anani Dzidzienyo, “Activity and Inactivity in the Politics of Afro-Latin America,” SECOLAS Annals (1978): 48–61; Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo, eds., Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
34 Marta Rangel, “Una panorámica de las articulaciones y organizaciones de los afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe,” Afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe: del reconocimiento estadistoc a la realización de derechos (Santiago, Chile: United Nations Publications, 2009)
35 Sawyer; Carlos Moore, Castro, the Blacks and Africa (Los Angeles: CAAS/UCLA, 1989); Carlos Moore, Pichón: Revolution and Racism in Castro’s Cuba: a memoir (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Press, 2008); Abdias do Nascimento and Elisa Nascimento, Africans in Brazil (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994); Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil Mixture or Massacre? Essays in the Genocide of a Black People 2nd ed. (Dover, MA: The Majority Press, 1989).
36 Alejandro de la Fuente, “The New Afro-Cuban Cultural Movement and the Debate on Race in Contemporary Cuba,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 40 (2008): 697–720.
37 Hanchard, 1994; Pierre Michel Fontaine, ed., Race, Class, Power in Brazil (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California, 1985).
38 Kwame Dixon, “Transnational Black Social Movements in Latin America: Afro-Colombians and the Struggle for Human Rights,” in Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy, eds. Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry E. Vanden, and Glen David Kuecker (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Peter Wade, “The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Colombia,” American Ethnologist 22(2) (1995): 341–357; Juan de Dios Mosquera Mosquera, Racismo y Discriminación Racial en Colombia (Bogota: Docentes Editores, 2003); Chomsky, 2007.
39 Henry MediaVallejo and Mary Castro Torres, Afroecuatorianos: Un movimento social emergente (Quito: Ediciones Afroamérica/CCA, 2006); Jhon Anton Sanchez, “El Proceso Organizativo Afroecuatoriano: 1979–2009” (Ph.D. Diss., FLACSO-Ecuador, 2009).
40 Forum Proceedings on Poverty Alleviation for Minority Communities in Latin America: Communities of African Ancestry (Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 1996); Juliet Hooker, “‘Beloved Enemies’: Race and Official Mestizo Nationalism in Nicaragua,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2005): 14–39.
41 Tianna S. Paschel and Mark Q. Sawyer, “Contesting Politics as Usual: Black Social Movements, Globalization, and Race Policy in Latin America,” Souls 10:3 (2008): 197–214.
42 Jhon Anton Sanchez, 2009; Alianza estrategica Afrolatinoamerica y Caribena 1a 2a Etapa. Montevideo, Uruguay: Organizaciones Mundo Afro; Romero Jorge Rodriguez, “Entramos Negros; salimos afrodescendientes,” Revista Futuros No. 5 2004, Vol. II. Accessed December 19, 2010, http://www.revistafuturos.info/futuros_5/afro_1.htm
43 Benedita da Silva, Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonça, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love (Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1997); Piedad Córdoba Ruiz, “Development, Conflict, and Territory,” in Race and Poverty: Interagency Consultation on Afro-Latin Americans (preliminary ed.) (Washington, DC: Inter-American Dialogue, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, 2000), 39–41.
44 Epsy Campbell Barr and Gloria Careaga Perez, eds., Poderes Cuestionados: Sexismo y Racismo en América Latina (San José: Diseno Editorial, 2002); Carlos de la Torre, Afroquiteños: Ciudadanía y Racismo (Quito: Centro Andino de Accion Popular-CAAP, 2002; Ollie A. Johnson III, “Black Activism in Ecuador, 1979–2009,” in Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America, ed. Kwame Dixon and John Burdick (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, forthcoming).
45 Juliet Hooker, “Indigenous Inclusion/Black Exclusion: Race, Ethnicity and Multicultural Citizenship in Latin America,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 37 (2005): 285–310.
46 Ivair Augusto Alves dos Santos, O movimento negro e o estado (1983–1987): O caso do conselho de participação e desenvolvimento da comunidade negra no governo de São Paulo (São Paulo: Coordenadoriados Assuntos da População Negra/Prefeitura da Cidade de São Paulo, 2006); Ollie A. Johnson III, “Locating Blacks in Brazilian Politics: Afro-Brazilian Activism, New Political Parties, and Pro-Black Public Policies,” International Journal of Africana Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2006): 170–193; George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991).
47 Sales Augusto dos Santos, “Universidades Públicas, Sistema de Cotas para os Estudantes Negros e Disputas Acadêmico-Políticas no Brasil Contemporâneo,” Política & Trabalho: Revista de Ciências Sociais, 22, (2010): 49–73; Marilene de Paula and Rosana Heringer, eds., Caminhos convergentes: Estado e Sociedade na superação das desigualdades raciais no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Fundação Heinrich Boll, ActionAid, 2009); Sales Augusto dos Santos, “Movimento negros, educação, e açoes afirmativas.” (Ph.D. diss., Universidade de Brasilia, 2007); Ollie A. Johnson III, “Afro-Brazilian Politics: White Supremacy, Black Struggle, and Affirmative Action,” in Democratic Brazil Revisited, eds. Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), 209–230; Bernd Reiter and Gladys L. Mitchell, eds., Brazil’s New Racial Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010).
48 Johnson, 2008; Seth Racusen, “Affirmative and Action and Identity” and Mónica Treviño González, “Opportunities and Challenges for the Afro-Brazilian Movement” in Bernd Reiter and Gladys L. Mitchell, eds., Brazil’s New Racial Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010), 89–122, 123–138; Peter Fry, Yvonne Maggie, Marcos Chor Maio, Simone Monteiro, and Ricardo Ventura Santos, eds., Divisões perigosas: Políticas raciais no Brasil contemporaneo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Civilização Brasileira, 2007); Bailey, 2009.
49 Johnson, 2006; Paixão and Carvano, 2008.
50 Nilma Lino Gomes, “Limites e Possibilidades da Implementação da Lei 10.639/03 no contexto das politicias publicas em educação” in Caminhos convergentes: Estado e Sociedade na superação das desigualdades raciais no Brasil, eds. Marilene de Paula and Rosana Heringer (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Fundação Heinrich Boll, ActionAid, 2009), 39–74; Educação anti-racista: caminhos abertos pela Lei Federal no. 10.639/03 (Brasília, Brazil: Ministerio da Educação, Secretaria de Educação Continuada, Alfabetização e Diversidade, 2005).
51 Colectivo Red Afrovenezolana, Somos La Red de Organizaciones Afrovenezolanas (Caracas, Venezuela: Ministerio de la Cultura, 2005).
52 Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Aviva Chomsky, “The Logic of Displacement: Afro-Colombians and the War in Colombia,” in Darién J. Davis, ed., Beyond Slavery: The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 171–198.
53 Chomsky, 2007; I Conferencia Nacional Afrocolombiana: Una Minga por la Vida: Memorias y Documentos (Bogotá: 3 Mundos Editores Ltda, 2003); Tianna S. Paschel, “Explaining Colombia’s Shift from Color Blindness to the Law of Black Communities,” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 116, No. 3, (November 2010): 729–769.
54 Ollie A. Johnson III, “Black Politics in Latin America: An Analysis of National and Transnational Politics,” in African American Perspectives on Political Science, ed. Wilbur C. Rich (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007).