The incredible whitening od Sammy Sosa / El beisbolista Sammy Sosa se blanquea?

Feliz Día de la Afrocolombianidad / Happy Afrocolombian Day

El día de la Afrocolombianidad, 21 mayo fue ayer, pero bueno, mejor tarde que nunca. Aquí en Quibdó, se celebró con una misa en la catedral por la mañana y un desfile de los colegios por las calles, con sus bandas, la ocasional chirimía, y representaciones de varios países africanos con pancartas, representaciones (un poco fantásticas) de sus vestidos típicos, y hasta banderas (hechas en casa, me imagino, dónde se compra la bandera de Liberia en Quibdó?).

Es el primer 21 de mayo que estoy en el país desde 2006, y me ha impresionado la cobertura mediática, a diferencia del silencio de años pasados. Eso no quiere decir que esa cobertura siempre sea de la más ilustrada - Don Juan, revista para los hombres "play" colombianos, tiene un artículo / galería de fotos de (flacas) modelos negras, recomendándo a las mujeres negras (y a sus "nalgas como dos mundos enteros") como el último accesorio de moda, y hasta haciendo recomendaciones para uno - uno blanco se supone - conquistarlas. Sea como sea, los negros están de moda, y hasta personas que de pronto no se identificarían como tal, como Mabel Lara, presentadora de Noticias Caracol (quien asegura que "estaría mintiendo si digo que yo he sido discriminada") se están asumiendo identidad afro, por lo menos para aceptar condecoraciones como "ejemplo para la comunidad afrocolombiana." Y es importante que inclusive los noticieros diarios estén pasando, como pasaron ayer, la noticia del Día de la Afrocolombianidad (usando, en el caso de RCN, escenarios tomados de la serie "Raíces" de Alex Haley y "No le pega a la negra" de Joe Arroyo como fondo musical), ayudando a que el mensaje de la importancia histórica (si no siempre la situación actual) de los afros en Colombia llegue a su mayoría no negra. Si hace más hincapié en la conmemoración que en las luchas actuales, es un paso importante en un país que nunca ha confrontado su historia esclavista.

La pregunta que surge, por supuesto, es el porqué de esta visibilidad. Lo del multiculturalismo ha sido estudiado y reestudiado, y no repito lo que he dicho en otras partes, pero sería importante enfatizar el enfoque que la actual administración está haciendo sobre los afrocolombiano, sobre todo como para convencer a EE.UU., su presidente negro, y el Black Congressional Caucus de lo democrático que es el país (a pesar de los falsos positivos, las chuzadas del DAS, la posibilidad de una dictadura constitucional a lo Fujimori resultante de una tercera elección del presidente). Véase, por ejemplo, algunas ideas que está proponiendo el Vice-Presidente:

Santos expresó que el proyecto establecerá condicionamientos que permitan mejorar el acceso de los afros a la educación y al trabajo. Puso de ejemplo que se exigiría que el estado únicamente pueda contratar con universidades en las que exista un porcentaje de graduados de raza negra y que en el examen del Icfes al menos el 5 por ciento del cuestionario sea sobre la historia afro en Colombia. Igualmente se propondría que el Estado sólo contrate con empresas que certifiquen el número de gerentes negros que tienen en su organización, con el fin de incentivar la contratación de personas afro en buenos cargos.

Todo bien. Excelente inclusive. Pero incompleto. Contribuye más a conversión de los todavía relativamente escasos profesionales negros en negros profesionales, es decir, de crear una categoría burocrática racial que en úlitimas beneficie más a los burgueses negros que sepan aprovechar del color de su piel que a la situación de los descendientes afrocolombianos más allá de ese grupo pequeño, es decir de los campesinos y clases populares, para los cuales la premiación de una Mabel Lara es poco consuelo para su situación. Chévere la lucha contra la discriminación racial - pero ojo que denominar a la discriminación como solamente racial encubra las variadas formas de racismo cultural y clasista que van cogidas de la mano con los esterotipos fenotípicos, y que tienen la misma vigencia, si no más.

Another Latino immigrant beaten to death by strangers

What the fuck is going on in New York these days?

Says The Times

The two brothers from Ecuador had attended a church party and had stopped at a bar afterward. They may have been a bit tipsy as they walked home in the dead of night, arm-in-arm, leaning close to each other, a common tableau of men in Latino cultures, but one easily misinterpreted by the biased mind. Suddenly a car drew up. It was 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a half-block from the brothers’ apartment, was nearly deserted — but not quite. Witnesses, the police said, heard some of what happened next.

Says The Post

Moments later, a maroon SUV occupied by three black men pulled up while the brothers were holding each other by the arms, cops said. Believing the brothers were gay, one of the black men spewed, "Check out those f----ts over there," police said. The trio then jumped out of the SUV with the driver brandishing an aluminum bat and accosted the two brothers, cops said. As one of the suspects shouted, "Fuck you, Spanish people," the bat-wielding driver allegedly bashed Sucuzhanay in the head, crushing his skull.

Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhanay, 31, the Ecuadorian owner of a local real estate agency, was taken off life support and died.

Conference: Reconfigurations of Racism and New Scenarios of Power After 2001 / Reconfiguraciones del racismo y nuevos escenarios de poder

Reconfigurations of Racism and New Scenarios of Power After 2001
Reconfiguraciones del racismo y nuevos escenarios de poder despues del 2001
RECONFIGURAÇÕES DO RACISMO E OS NOVOS CENÁRIOS DE PODER APÓS 2001

December 8 and 9, 2008 at the Campus Center, Reading Room, University of Massachusetts Amherst .

Since the 2001 World Conference against Racism, held in Durban , South Africa , in 2001, Latin America has emerged as a primary region in global constellations of racial politics and race-specific policies. The rise of Black movements across the region has been met by the elaboration for the first time of state policies explicitly designed for Afro-descendant populations. Yet social indicators reveal that the majority of the Afro-Latinos still suffer from serious social inequalities and persistent political and economic disenfranchisement. This international conference brings together leading Black movement activists and specialists in comparative race relations to assess the status of racial inequality, the current state of racial politics, and the efficacy of racial policies pertaining to Afro-descendants in the Latin American region and, comparatively, in the Americas as a whole since Durban.

Desde la Conferencia Mundial 2001 en contra de racismo que tomó lugar en Durban, Suráfrica, en 2001, América Latina ha sobresalido como una primera región en las constelaciones globales de políticas raciales y específicas a razas. El auge de los movimientos negros en la región ha enfrentado con la elaboración por primera vez de políticas estatales explícitmante diseñadas por poblaciones afrodescendientes. Mas los indicadores sciales revelan que la mayoría de los Afro-latinos siguen sufriendo de las inequidades cosiales y persistente marginalzación política y económica. Esta conferencia internacional convoca activistas sobresalientes del movimiento negro y especialistas en relaciones raciales comparativas para medir el estado de las inequidades raciales, de las políticas raciales, y la eficacia de las políticas raciales a facvor de los afrodescendientes en la región latinoamericana y, comparativamente, en Ámerica generalmente.

Confirmed speakers include:
Entre los ponentes estarán:
Jhon Anton (Corporación de Desarrollo Afroecuatoriana, Ecuador); María Inés Barbosa (UNIFEM); Humberto Brown (Alianza Estratégica Afro-descendiente); Nirva Camacho, Red de Organizaciones Afro-Venezolanas); Epsy Campbell (Black Latin American Parliament, Costa Rica); Suely Carneiro (Geledés, Brazil); Sergia Galvan (Red de Mujeres Afro latinoamericanas, Caribeñas y de la Diaspora); Libia Grueso (Observatorio de Discriminación Racial-Universidad de los Andes, Proceso de Comunidades Negras); Joseph Jordan (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill); Claudia Mosquera (Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Bogota); Tianna Paschel (Uiversity of California at Berkeley); Seth Racusen (Anna Maria College); Matilde Ribeiro (Former Minister of Racial Equality, Brazil); Romero Rodríguez (Mundo Afro, Uruguay); Rosita Romero (Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Dominicana); Edward Telles (Princeton University); J. Michael Turner (Caribbean Cultural Center, GALCI) and Tukufu Zuberi (University of Pennsylvania).

For program details and other information, please contact the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies, UMass Amherst at 413-545-4648, write to us at afrolat@polsci.umass.edu, or consult our website at http://www.umass.edu/clacls/events.htm

Racist attacks in NY area / Asaltos racistas en NY

• Black teenager in States Island beaten by white kids yelling "Obama!" on election night. Link
  
• Adolescente negro neoyorquino agredido por jóvenes blancos gritando "Obama!" la noche de la votación Enlace (castellano)
  

• Ecuadorean "lynched" by 6 white kids and a 1/2 black 1/2 Rican friend, who went out looking to "get a Mexican," a pastime known in Long Island as "beaner jumping" Link
  
• Ecuatoriano "linchado" por 6 jóvenes blancos y un 1/2 afro-americano 1/2 puertorriqueño quienes salieron a "cazar mexicanos" un pasatiempo conocido en Long Island con la frase peyorativa "atacar frijolero" Enlace (castellano)

Just as a side note, it should not be a surprise that one of these LI kids was 1/2 Puerto Rican. Even aside from this guy being in an all-white LI crowd, there is a pretty strong tension in this city, partially about citizenship, partially racial, between US-born Caribbean Latinos and first-generation South and Central Americans.

Parenteticamente, no debe sorporender que uno de estos muchachos en LI es 1/2 puertorriqueño. Aún aparte del hecho de que este tipo andaba esa noche con blancos, hay en esta ciudad una fuerte tensión, en parte sobre cuestiones de ciudadanía, en parte racial, entre los Latinos de ascendencia caribeña nacidos en el país, y los inmigrantes sur- y centro-americanos...

Planned film on Haitian Revolution "lacks white heroes"

Link

"US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes.

"Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film. "I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to," he said. "The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good in Japan."

Latino immigrant beaten to death

Link

"The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said."

[The victim's white fiancée, who grew up in Shenandoah and has two children with the murdered man, said] "I plan on moving out of this town as fast as I can. Not because I'm scared. I just don't want to see my children have to deal with what their father dealt with."

"I think any time there's a fight and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs," [one of the defense lawyers] said. "I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently."

Aymara Rap as racism in Bolivia heats up / Rap Aymara y racismo boliviano

Mitad Tupac Shakur, mitad Tupac Amaru, y más necesario que nunca con los abusos que se están cometiendo actualmente en Bolivia.

Half Tupac Shakur, half Tupac Amaru, all the more necessary given the madness that going down in Bolivia these days.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, check the links:
Si no sabés de que estoy hablando, chequeate los enlaces:

Link (Article in English/Artículo en inglés)
Enlace (Videp en español / Spanish video)

Conference: Racism and Discrimination in the Americas / Conferencia: Racismo y Discriminación en las Américas

The Latin American and Caribbean Community Center and Cidadao Global host US-based Durban Conference Call with WCAR International Coordinating Committee Member Margaret Parsons

Tomorrow, Friday May 30th at 1:00pm EST, Margaret Parsons will Margaret Parsons will joining Cidadao Global and the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center to discuss the upcoming Durban Prep Com (Americas) that will take place in Brasilia next weeks and the 2009 Durban Review conference as well as the 5th Summit of the Americas.

Please join us at 1:00pm EST. To join this conference call

Conference Dial-in Number: (616) 597-8000
Participant Access Code: 486016#

Margaret Parsons is the Executive Director African Canadian Legal Clinic in Toronto, Ontario

Please review the Summary of the Durban Process Meeting that took place on May 8th, The Themes and Objectives of the upcoming Prep Meeting, and if you are interested in participating, please download the accreditation form (you must submit it by May 30th).

Read the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center and Cidadao Global (LACCC/CG)Press Statement

The Latin American and Caribbean Community Center and Cidadao Global (LACCC/CG) will be attending the Regional Preparatory Meeting that will take place in Brasilia, Brazil from June 13-17, as well as organizing a series of consultative meetings and Durban process trainings. If you would like to join the national Durban Committee 2009 and/or keep up to date with the NGO and civil society process, please visit http://durban2009.wikispaces.com.

Cidadao Global and the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center are U.S.-based organizations committed to the application of the human rights framework in the United States while addressing issues such as racist and discriminatory practices and legislation, class and gender. For more information please visit www.cidadaoglobal.org and www.lacccenter.org

"La pobreza en Cali tiene color"

El 36 por ciento de la comunidad afrocolombiana que habita en Cali se encuentra sobre la línea de pobreza. Los caleños no pertenecientes a esta comunidad, son menos pobres (31 por ciento).
Enlace

Feliz semana de la Afrocolombianidad / Happy Afro-Colombian Week

157 years since the abolition of slavery in Colombia. Racism of course still continues, as is covered by Semana magazine (see links below). Plus the website of the Observatory of Racial Discrimination at the University of the Andes in Bogotá.

157 años desde la abolición de la esclavización en Colombia. El racismo, obviamente, sigue, como documenta la revista Semana.

Proyecto de ley contra la discriminación (video):
Enlace

Las penas del racismo (multimedia)
Enlace

Finalmente, la página del Observatorio de Discriminacíon Racial de la Universidad de los Andes: Enlace

Racial profiling on the NYC Subway

No foolin', ya don't say...

This article from the NY Daily News says that cops disproportionately stop and frisk Blacks and Latinos on the trains, and that train stops have gone up even though crime has gone down. This is especially true in Manhattan (of course). The piece also has a nice interative map giving statistics by transit district, and the story from a high school kid that got stopped for no reason ("I don't look like a terrorist") and some dude waiting for his girlfriend ("I was embarrassed because it was my home station," he said. "I didn't want anyone to think I had been doing something against the law or anything like that. I don't think anyone saw me, but who knows?") The readers' comments are pretty interesting in this respect too.

Why Afro-Colombians Oppose the Colombia FTA

February 7th, 2008

Marino Cordoba, founder of the Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), submitted this post as a guest blogger for The Hill.

The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is considered a non-starter in the U.S. Congress because the country is the world’s deadliest for union activists. Less known, but equally disturbing is the systematic violence now confronting Afro-Colombians.

African descendants comprise 26% of Colombia’s population. As with other African descendants, we face racial discrimination which results in economic hardships far worse than those experienced by the average Colombian. However in Colombia, a vibrant 1980s civil rights movement won full recognition of our cultural rights and collective ownership and community control of our territories and natural resources. The 1991 Colombian Constitution and the landmark Law 70 explicitly enshrine these rights and recognize official democratic Afro-Colombian governance structures, similar to those of your Indian tribes.

The administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has worked consistently to undermine our hard-won civil rights and our control of our territories. Systematic violence against our people and assassinations of our leaders continue unabated to this day.

At the end of 2007, angered by the strong opposition of the majority of Afro-Colombian communities to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA,) Uribe created a new Commission in Colombia that directly challenges our legal governance structure.

Cynically dubbed the Commission for the Advancement of Afro-Colombian People, it would undermine our communities’ ability to advance development strategies chosen by our people that comport with our needs and that help even the economic playing field.

Obviously, our official governance structure and our grassroots organizations oppose this new Commission. Despite this, President George Bush and other U.S. Uribe allies, such as Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and the vast array of lobbying firms hired by the Uribe government are now trying to tout this outrageous Commission as evidence that Afro- Colombian concerns are being addressed as they push to pass the FTA.

Don’t be fooled. President Uribe, the Bush Administration and Congressman Meeks may not like what authentic Afro-Colombian representatives are saying, but our legitimate governing bodies vigorously oppose the FTA, as well as other efforts by Uribe to impose natural resource exploitation projects in our territories without our consent.

Because the Colombian law is on our side, wealthy interests have employed illegal means to physically remove us. Joint operations between the Colombian military and illegal terrorist paramilitary organizations like the “Operation Genesis” in the Afro-Colombian Chocó region have targeted our leaders with assassinations while the Colombian military has aerially bombarded our communities.

Tens of thousands of us have been forced to flee. These attacks clear the way for the entry of oil palm plantations, logging operations, and mining projects advanced by allies of the Uribe Administration.

Colombia has more than 3 million internally displaced peope. This kind of forced displacement is now occurring in port communities and other regions supporters of the FTA seek to develop. None of our lands have been returned to our control.

Accompanying these physical attacks has been a legal assault aimed at formalizing the theft of our land. The Uribe government passed new Forestry and Rural Development Laws and has amended the Mining Law to extinguish our rights and empower oil palm, logging and other companies that have utilized the services of paramilitaries to occupy our territories.

Our communities have vehemently opposed these laws as unconstitutional. Recently the Colombian Supreme Court ruled against the Forestry Law, which would have removed our control of the forests on our land. Our Supreme Court ruled that under international and Colombian law, the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities that strongly opposed the law should have been consulted * which they were not.

The Colombia FTA is the same situation. It is a proposal that our communities oppose, about which our traditional authorities were not consulted, and which would lock in the paramilitary-financiers control of our land. Specifically, the FTA’s expansive foreign investor rights would empower multinational corporations investing in these projects with protections that would make restoration of our lands extremely difficult, even when we win in our courts.

Recognizing our opposition, Uribe and his allies devised this new Commission, which is stacked with Uribe supporters and individuals known to support the FTA, to feign “consultation” with Afro-Colombian communities and issue a determination that the FTA is good for us despite our communities’ contrary conclusions.

Rather than a positive development, this new Commission is a sophisticated ploy to undermine Afro-Colombian rights and is a part of a broader strategy to elevate unrepresentative and illegitimate pro-FTA individuals against the stated interest of Afro-Colombian communities themselves.

Congress can help Afro-Colombians by demanding that President Uribe respect the Colombian Constitution and terminate this Commission that challenges our civil rights. And, Congress should pass House Resolution 618 sponsored by Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) on the plight of Afro-Colombians.

Marino Córdoba is the founder of the Association of Internally Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES). He played a key role in the struggle to secure Colombia’s progressive Law 70, which grants land rights to Afro-Colombian communities. After surviving many attempts on his life, Mr. Cordoba has been forced to live in exile in the United States.

Otro incendio grande en barrio marginal de Afros

La invasíon África, en el Vallado, parte del Distrito de Aguabalnca en Cali, quemó. Enlace Nótense el racismo y falta de compasíon de los comentarios de los lectores, que sugieren incluso quemar todo el Distrito, con la gente adentro. Y dicen que los salvajes son los negros?

Corrientes racistas en las universidades en Cali

Este graffitti, por ejemplo, de la Universidad de Santiago de Cali, que de hace años ha sido un punto importante para los jóvenes estudiantes afros en Cali. Recientemente, me llegó un correo electrónica denunciando racsimo en la Universidad del Valle. Qué pasa? Enlace