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The realization that racism is a problem in Latin America and the Caribbean comes late, since for years it has been assumed that our nations, shaped by their racial plurality, governed as “racial democracies” in which they settled supposed paradises where it was expected that skin color has no meaning in the social, political, cultural or economic organization. The truth is that racism in this part of the continent is even more complex than racism in countries that have segregation laws, such as the United States or South Africa.
It turns out that the myth of racial mixing as a form of social balance that arose from the supposed “racial democracies” only began to be debunked in the early 1990s. In some countries, the acceptance of their African roots in national imaginations continues to be questioned, as in the case of Argentina and Mexico This failure to see and name racism is a serious problem that will not only result in moral failings, but will have real repercussions for local, national and international economies: including impacts on public policy implementation, sustainability and Environmental Protection.
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dr Candis Watts Smith, a professor of political science at Duke University, says one of the key problems in tackling racism relates to the lack of a precise definition and collective understanding of what it is. This lack of understanding becomes even more thorny when it is not even accepted that there is racial discrimination, particularly against blacks with darker skin. And it’s more of a challenge when we see today that there are countries that claim to have no trace of the African diaspora that arrived in their populations at the time of colonization. Argentine President Alberto Fernández said in controversial statements last year: “The Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships. They were ships coming from Europe,” taking a quote by writer Octavio Paz out of context, in contempt for Argentina’s indigenous and black ancestry. The persistent denial of Blackness in Latin American countries is a factor preventing the measurement, acceptance and eventual eradication of racism. The prevailing need to work to eradicate racism is grounded in justice, but this is certainly not the only reason to continue to address this issue. The costs of racism are many and in these days when inflation seems to be rising and currencies are behaving in more drastic and ambivalent ways, it is appropriate to consider what other economic practices need to be implemented to ensure people’s financial well-being.
Joseph Losavio, expert on cities, urban infrastructure and services at the World Economic Forum, says in his text What racism costs us all: “Systemic racism is a global problem. (…) Systemic racism has significant economic costs. A less racist society can be a stronger society from an economic point of view. For example, it is estimated that between 2019 and 2028, the wealth gap between black and white Americans will cost the US economy between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion in unrealized consumption and investment. This is expected to result in a penalty to GDP of between 4% and 6% in 2028.
The mere fact that ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) and the United Nations Population Fund by 2020 have failed to address the challenges, statistical data and realities facing Afro-descendent communities in Latin America and Africa in putting the Caribbean faces together in a single document tells us a lot. Entitled Afrodescendants and the matrix of social inequality in Latin America: challenges to inclusion, the book sheds light on the situation of people of African descent in the region and is an important guide to understanding that phenotypic differences are in racial processes and also discrimination were used on this side of the world.
For example, this paper analyzes how Afro-descended women continue in disparity processes that leave them in unfavorable conditions for their career development: “Latin American labor markets are characterized by pronounced segregation and segmentation, as a result of high degrees of structural heterogeneity and the constitutive nodes of gender inequality “, the text states. “Moreover, as noted earlier, there are deep ethno-racial inequalities that result in a greater concentration of people of Afro descent in low-skilled, informal jobs with greater precariousness and job instability. The concurrent experience These two structural axes of inequality, in addition to the persistence of racism and various forms of racial discrimination in the labor market, means that women of Afrost origin are most affected.”
The work done in this report points out very clearly that these gaps cannot be adequately filled without first rigorously understanding the region’s structural and systematic racism. And a call is made to understand anti-blackness as part of the problem at the statistical level that has led to the invisibility and lack of recognition of the Afro population.
Regarding the phenomenon of racism denial and its impact on the economy, John Kolmos, former professor of economic history at the University of Munich, states: “Market fundamentalism need not be overtly racist to be structurally racist. This is the essence of color blind, covert, implicit, institutional, structural racism. This renders neoliberal economic theory covertly racist as an unintended consequence of the seemingly neutral assumptions on which it is based. Their underlying unwarranted assumptions help keep disadvantaged groups at a disadvantage,” he says. It is “racism without racists” with “great consequences”. “Economic theories have a strong influence, seeping into the media and dominating public discourse on the streets and in the congress halls,” he says. Both Kolmos and Candis warn that neutrality can be a handicap that perpetuates not only systemic racism but also the economic decline of black communities, and therefore the people of Latin America and the Caribbean.
There is an urgent need to participate, not only to acknowledge the rampant racism of our countries, but to see in economic policies the complicity they have had with this silence and this advocacy of the discourse on miscegenation that continues to afflict thousands of black people and the World vulnerable leaves fewer tools to offset a possible recession.
Carolina Rodriguez Mayo She is a teacher, writer and traveller. He has published in Colombian magazines such as Literariedad, Sombralarga, Sinestesia, Volcánicas and Manibrista. It was selected to be part of a young poets’ anthology, Outcrops, the bridges back to the past are broken, edited by Fallidos Editores. He produces the podcast Cimarrón Manifesto in which he talks about blackness, diversity and resistance.