Is there racial discrimination
in Venezuela?
No.
This is the answer you will get
from about 90 per cent or more of the population here in Venezuela. There is no
racial discrimination, only there are issues with classes, you would be told.
Venezuela presents a very
difficult fabric which is interwoven and mixed to the point nothing really
stands on its own purity. Venezuelans are mestizos
with a rich background that spans from both directions.
In fact, no matter how dark or
light-skinned Venezuelans are, most of them they will tell you that they are mestizos. There is a tendency of
generalizing and drawing similarities making everyone racially the same.
It is also very common for
families to have some children that look very light-skinned and refer to them
as Catires and have others with the
darkest skin and refer to them as Negros.
But all this reference is non discriminative and quite acceptable.
In the year 2004, there was a TransAfrica Forum which took place in
Caracas. Though most people would say there is no discrimination, the delegates
in the forum concluded that there is racism and pointed out different instances
of its usage in Venezuela.
According to the forum black
people can be referred to as ‘monkeys’ which is a derogatory term Venezuelans
use for the people of African descent. They were also able to compile a list of
over 1,000 racist comments that have appeared over the Venezuelan media.
In fact in the years 1980’s
there existed places of social gathering that black people were not allowed to patronize.
But what makes it so difficult
to pin down racism or even define it in the context of Venezuela is the fact
that, unlike other countries in Europe, Asia and North America, Venezuelan
society is more homogenous irrespective of its skin color differences.
This makes it inherently
difficult since there are no clear lines of distinctions that can be drawn
culturally to pinpoint where racism really lies. Everyone eats the same things,
speaks the same language, believe in the same beliefs and feel there is no
racism.
But recently I was speaking to a
Chavista who noted that racial lines
are more evident in politics, and classes. Most dark-skinned people tend to
belong to the lower class and live in the poor barrios than the light-skinned people who live in the rich
neighborhoods.
The reason for this being that,
unlike most descendants of with Portuguese, Italian or Spanish roots who have
had access to both political and economic power from colonial times, most black
people are ascending from the shacks of slavery.
For this, most of the
dark-skinned people are Chavistas and
support the socialism of the 21st Century and they are the
beneficiaries of the government affirmative actions while on the other hand
light-skinned people are the opposite.
He also made a comment of how telenovelas opt for light-skinned people
for the lead roles, leaving the chauffeurs and cooks and other marginal roles
to those with darker complexions.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI would agree that there is racism in Venezuela against the opinion of the majority, but your interviewee gave you wrong information and is clearly ignorant of Venezuelan history.
1) the huge majority of the Italian, portuguese and Spanish are descendants of 1, 2 or 3 generation. They arrived mostly after the the 2nd wolrd war. By the way, not a small number were fleeing far right regimes in Europe and were extremely poor when they arrived.
2) White descendants of the first colonisers are a myth created by Chavez, and has no support on historians. Brito Figueroa, the Marxist historian who worked harder on social history and demography in Venezuela is a source you can consult yourself. Other historians with qualification as historians would support this. (for example, another marxist, Salvador de la Plaza)
3) If you review Manuel Caballero, another historian, not marxist, professor at oxford I think, not sure, he sustain that the white descendants where basically exterminated during the indipendence war and the Federal War (1853_63)
You must notice that Venezuelan families are normally mixed, and you have to go back 4 or five generations or more to find black, indigenous or whites.
Also geography has a role to play. In the coast people are darker than in the inlands. Very simple, African slaves were used in plantations which exported mainly cocoa. They happened to be in the coast. Also in the andes you find whiter people than in the south, where colonization never really happened.
However it is true that in telenovelas light skinned are likely to be richer and cooks darker and more significant, beauty queens are normally white and of Spanish or Italian ancestry.
The most important issue to remember about racism in Venezuela is that is very open, whereas racism in the UK, for example, is hidden, because is forbidden.
And it is hard to think of a family where there isn{t a brother who is the negro or a sister who is the negra, and a brother and a sister who is the catira (the blonde) or sometimes the china (literally the chinese) but meant really indigenous looking).
Fabrizio, first of all thanks for your comment and your explanation which I didn't know. Also thanks for throwing some light to the Chavismo on how it has played a role in defining this argument.
ReplyDeleteI will review the sources you have provided here for further understanding.
But what I find interesting is that, although colonizers were exterminated, the current ruling section, the powerful class, and the "color" that resides in the rich neighborhood is that "white" meaning of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (European to put it broadly) ancestry. So to put in few words, when the migration from Europe towards South America happened, that migration was the one that took over the economy.
How did they get access to the economy and power? Is there any correlation between the colonizers and the new migration taking into account common characteristics they might have?
I am happy to explore this further. Let me know what you think the reasoning behind this might be.
Thanks Fabrizio.
please have a look at this video about structural racism in Venezuela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ELtNzkXXw
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this video. From my experience, and as pointed in the video, when I inquired about racism in Venezuela most Venezuelans told me it didn't exist. Racism in Venezuela is structural.
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