Diagnosis of the problem

Latin America is a multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural region.
Peoples of African descent exist in all Latin American countries.
Many live in distinct cultural groups that were founded during the
colonial period when fugitive slaves escaped and formed their own
communities in isolated areas.

In reality, the descendents of these runaway populations suffer a
similar destiny. Their economic and social conditions and status are
lower than the national average in their countries. The majority live
in conditions of poverty and extreme poverty. Due to their
invisibility, lack of political and economic power, and because they
live in the most remote and poor areas of their countries or in the
most miserable conditions in urban centers, they are among the most
vulnerable peoples of Latin America.

Racial and ethnic prejudice are problems affecting all of us. A
strong afro-Latino civil society will be able to devise and promote
solutions to racial prejudice, discrimination and institutionalized
racism. This will promote more prosperity in the region.

In order to have a strong civil society it is necessary to establish
international mechanisms which protect human and ethnic rights, also,
this protection should be provided by the National States themselves.

Those specific racist and endoracist mechanisms that generate the
marginalization of Afro-Latino peoples are presented in the following
chart.

Conceptual Framework of the Mechanisms that Maintain Prejudice and
Racial Discrimination against Peoples of African descent in Latin
America

1. Lack of a Legal and Normative
Framework that Protects against
Discrimination

All countries have constitutional
clauses affirming the equality of
all citizens before the law.
Nevertheless, this right is not
guaranteed by laws that execute it
or sanction its fulfillment. For
the most part, there are no
effective forms of legal
protection against inequality.

2. Cultural Framework that
Maintains Racial Prejudice and
Discriminatory Behavior

(a) Historical prejudice kept alive

(b) Physical and legal invisibility

(c) Distance from an African past

(d) Hidden Discrimination

3. Institutional Framework that
Maintains Discriminatory
Investment Practices

(a) Lack of economic investment
in zones of Afro-Latino
majority

(b) Development policies and
programs that maintain the
status quo

(c) Globalization tendencies
which perpetuate and increase
inequality and poverty

(d) Foreign debt

(e) Threats to the consolidation
of Afro-Latino territories

1. The Lack of a Legal and Normative Framework that Protects against
Discrimination

Latin American countries generally interpret Constitutional articles
of equality as proof that their society is a racial democracy where
racial differences no longer exist. Due to this, the region has not
developed the necessary laws to protect the rights of peoples of
African descent confronted with racial discrimination.

In these societies, the courts have left Afro-Latino peoples without
access to legal or judicial protection. This allows for various forms
of marginalization, one of these being the absence of laws that punish
employment discrimination. Those who suffer economic marginalization
are the people whose "good appearance" does not fit into the mestizo
prototype. This is apparent in many of the job offers published in the
regional newspapers.

1. Cultural Framework that Maintains Racial Prejudice and
Discriminatory Behavior

(a) Historical Prejudice Kept Alive

Colonial Heritage and the Moors

The colonial past of Latin America has laid the framework for behavior
towards people of African descent. In 1492, the recent conquest of
Spain against the African Moors (from Mauritania and Senegal), who had
dominated the area for 800 years, resulted in decrees and laws
preventing people of Moorish ancestry from regaining power, either in
Spain or its colonies. Colonial civil servants were penalized if they
married anyone with "bad" (African), and the children of these unions
were ostracized. In order to combat such stigma it was necessary to
purchase certificates of Pure Blood from the Crown, guaranteeing the
absence of African ancestry.

In this way people could be culturally and socially isolated, despite
their wealth, education or nobility, if they were found to have
African ancestry. The Latin custom of marrying lighter-skinned
people, of socially favoring whites and emulating the Spanish nobility
and not the wise Moors, originated with Queen Elizabeth's fear of a
Moorish reconquest and the laws established to prevent it.

Philosophies of Racial Supremacy

The racial philosophy and the principals of migrant policies of the
new Latin American nations were based on the thoughts of various
philosophers at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
These erudites considered blacks as an inferior species that, if
possible, should be eradicated or at least segregated from the rest of
society. Some believed that it was possible to destroy the black
genetic make-up by way of "mixing", since white genes were superior
and would dominate.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of Latin American
nations attempted to improve their genetic make-up by means of
"whitening," the largest favoring a massive European immigration; and
almost all establishing laws to prevent the immigration of blacks.
All tried to reduce the size of the black population and make it
invisible.

(b) Invisibility

Invisibility is maintained by the lack of information about the
contributions and experiences of blacks in history books, national
statistics and other publications. In the economic sector blacks are
made invisible by the type of employment to which they have access.
These jobs tend to be in cleaning and security, and rarely in customer
service.

What creates this invisibility is the process of socialization. All
social institutions, including the church, government and family,
contribute to this objective. The public thinks blacks have not
contributed anything to national development, ignoring their military
contribution in the fight for independence and their contribution to
the economic well-being of the region in the colonial period.

The result of this process is a population that only knows derogatory
stereotypes of blacks and that accepts its own discriminatory
behavior. The destruction and infrequent use of resources of African
descent results in an incalculable loss for Latin America.

(c) Distance from an African Past

The result of minimizing or erasing from individual and collective
memory all genetic, cultural and other black contributions to the
nation and/or at the same time to Europe and Europeans. This tendency
brings about endoracism. Despite the abolition of slavery, the social
stigma that blacks are subjected to on account of the color of their
skin and their African features has been culturally maintained by
conscious and subconscious behaviors that are passed from one
generation to the next.

Latin American society, in fact, prevents people of African ancestry
from learning about their African heritage, apart from slavery or
servitude under European domination. Dominant social groups ensure
that blacks learn nothing about Africa or African-Americans, beginning
with labeling them by the color of their skin and not by their African
ancestry. History books and scholarly texts do not include these
themes in their contents. Since the colonial period, blacks have
hidden their cultural expression because their celebrations, music and
dance were considered "vulgar," as the performers rid themselves of
their inhibitions.

One reason for this was the fear that the African culture was a
powerful tool that would motivate a slave rebellion. The Catholic
Church was afraid of the African culture and religions and was key in
containing the blacks within their sphere of influence. They
permitted celebrations only on the days of Roman saints and limited
the organization of the blacks to religious and cultural purposes
within associations, which were run by priests. This limited
recognition of the power of the African culture is what remains
sociably acceptable.

In the professional environment, the arts and athletics are the only
spheres in which Latin Americans hope to see blacks succeed. As a
result, black children fulfill the prophecy of their teachers and
society in general, that they can not be diligent or excellent
students. Blacks who have succeeded say that their level of
excellence must be higher than other ethnic groups. This is due to
the lack of support systems and the high level of emotional and
psychological strength needed to survive in non-traditional
occupations. These historically-existent attitudes have the effect
of:

i. Reinforcing stereotypes created by Europeans, negative ones
which blacks should live up to and positive ones which for
whites.
ii. Reinforcing the negative self-images that Afro-Latinos have due
to the color of their skin.
iii. Alienating blacks from others that share their African ancestry,
impeding the organization among blacks to increase their self-
development and better their own conditions.
iv. Using the description of "the modern life" formulated by
descendants of Europeans as the principal example of success.
This is a model which does not value blacks.

The combined effect of these phenomenon, besides distancing
individuals from their ancestral roots, is the self-hatred for their
physical and cultural identity, forming endoracist tendencies in
individuals of African ancestry. They hate in themselves those
features and aspects that are not European, and for which the society
devalues them. They then try to change, imitating whites. They
straighten their hair, use whitening creams, dress in sociably
acceptable ways, speak like the mainstream society, and keep their
distance from other blacks.

On a massive scale, this distancing from their own ancestral roots
reaches such a point that it can be described as an ethnic cleansing.

(d) Hidden Racism

The hidden racism that Afro-Latinos suffer throughout the region
consists of a discrimination with concealed actions. Individual
behavior is so ingrained in social norms that neither the
discriminator nor the victim considers it racial discrimination.

To constantly call attention to the color of a person, especially in a
negative context, reinforces their low self-esteem and augments their
self-devaluation for not embodying the white norm, meaning that blacks
and other non-whites try to alter their physical characteristics and
their determination to appear whiter is only increased.

2. Institutional Framework that Maintains Discriminatory Investment
Practices

(a) The Lack of Economic Investment in Majority Afro-Latino Zones

This lack of investment has long been a process which has delayed and
limited access to economic mobility, producing and reproducing
poverty. The specific mechanisms that have created these results are
the national investment policies. In the geographical zones with
local populations of afro-Andean majority, there is normally a lack of
basic infrastructure and services. Afro-Latino communities live in
isolation as far as communication and transportation services are
concerned. The only investments were made by foreigners in bananas,
minerals and wood, with the services and infrastructure these
required.

Institutionalized discrimination is also manifested in the quotas for
Afro-Latino admission into universities, as was the case in Managua in
recent years.

1. To give credit and technical assistance only to mestizo controlled
agriculture and large businesses. This has prevented blacks who
posses land from using their traditional methods of production and
it forced them to sell their land at very low cost.

2. To prevent municipalities with high black populations to keep the
taxes generated by their natural resources or ports, or participate
in decision-making in their region (Colombia).

3. In formulating laws governing agrarian reform, the Afro-Latino
patterns of land use have not been taken into account. Afro-Latino
traditional agriculture consists of planting fields far from
settlements and rotating fields in order to allow the land to rest
for a few years before planting it again. The lack of recognition
of these practices makes obtainment of land titles difficult.

4. Non-blacks are favored in the allocation of land titles. In some
countries military force is used to resolve disputes over the
possession of land by blacks.

5. The establishment of national parks and reserves in land that
blacks have preserved for centuries. In some cases, blacks have
been displaced without compensation despite their historical
occupation and use. In other cases their form of subsistence is
destroyed and they are forced to leave their land in order to
survive. Later, these lands are sold or leased to the management
of corporations, foundations, or individuals.

(b) Development Policies and Programs which Maintain the Status Quo

1. The exclusion of Afro-Latinos within vulnerable groups, on account
of their invisibility in regional statistics.

The use of poverty indicators in deciding the priority and
location of development investment has resulted in the exclusion
of black communities from development programs in the majority
of countries. These maps are based on census statistics, home-
inquiries or special poverty inquiries, that do not usually
include information about the population of African descent.
Some which do not include ethnicity in the data make special
inquiries for the indigenous population. Black communities are
generally located on the coast, along rivers and in humid forest
zones, where enclave economies distort economic income data. In
these areas there exists no concentration of indigenous
populations that can emphasize the zones. As a result, existing
pockets of black poverty are lost in the statistics.

2. Decentralization of administrative responsibilities in
municipalities without sufficient financial resources.

3. International Financial Institutions (IFI´s) are developing
investment practices in black communities which generate division
and debilitate civil society instead of fortalizing their social
and financial capital.

The largest investments in Afro-Latino communities have been made
by the Inter- American Development Bank in the Colombian Pacific
and the World Bank, in an Ecuadorian project, PRODEPINE. The World
Bank has encouraged the governments in both countries to establish
new commissions including ministers of government and indigenous
and/or black organizations in order to make decisions on all
investments for these communities.

(c) Globalization Tendencies which Perpetuate and Increase Inequality
and Poverty.

1. Non-traditional Exportation.

Production for non-traditional export markets has resulted in the
creation of new poverty, expressed in new urban immigration, local
unemployment, loss of local production capabilities in traditional
and subsistence areas and the depletion of natural resources.
Examples of this were sited in the IDB study in Nicaragua, Ecuador
and Colombia. Examples of export products were wood, shrimp,
bananas and minerals.

Non-traditional export products compete for land and resources. In
the end, the fight is lost by the local population. In none of the
sited cases did the new activity generate sufficient salaries, or a
trickle-down effect for the local population, that would compensate
the loss of access to subsistence production. The loss of income
is reflected in urban migration of the displaced population,
especially of those that sold their land at low cost. In the
cities and along the rivers of Guayaquil, marginalized
neighborhoods exemplify the population that is left unemployed and
without financial resources once the income from the sale of their
land is spent, for not having had the opportunity to invest in an
alternative product.

Exportation activity also uses or destroys natural resources at a
more accelerated pace than that of the local population. Even when
the law requires the investor to replace cut trees, they do so with
less valuable species which are not as scarce or precious as those
cut down.

(d) Foreign Debt

The foreign debt is a major factor worsening Afro-Latino
conditions, since a large part of the resources which the continent
would employ to moderately eliminate internal problems are destined
to pay the interest and service of the debt. Economic poverty, as
has been repeatedly demonstrated to the world, is a poverty of
power. The fact is that ethnicity constitutes a specific factor in
a person's state of development. Ethnicity frequently condemns
people to poverty and poverty is a deplorable condition. No one
wants to be poor.

(e) Threats to the Consolidation of Afro-Latino Territories

For Afro-Latino peoples, territory is their only valuable
possession, the only production factor under their control besides
their labor, and the only good that they can pass on to their
children.

These zones now are the only frontiers to be exploited. Their
natural resources have maintained their minerals and beauty and
have great tourist potential.

The land is communal property, owned by families and passed on
whole to the next generation. These lands remained outside of
legal framework until outsiders arrived in the community to take
possession and title of them without right.

The law does not generally recognize Afro-Latino production
practices nor the right to own land with their type of occupation
and use.

The difficulty in obtaining credit as communal territory has
reduced agricultural production overall. Many young people have
migrated to the cities, increasing the poverty of the region.

STATE PROPOSALS

1. To ratify and adhere to the International Agreements combating
racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance in all countries that have not done so.

2. To demand recognition of Afro-Latino peoples, including their
specific cultures, traditions and customs, a as a population
vulnerable to racism, discrimination and poverty.

3. The approbation of laws defining racism, xenophobia and other
forms of intolerance as punishable acts.

4. To insure that all inhabitants of these societies are guaranteed
fundamental rights, especially victims of racism, economic and
social inequality.

5. To demand that governments incorporate in their national
censuses and home- inquiries appropriate questions to determine
the ethnic and cultural situations of Afro-Latinos, and that
they correlate this information with socioeconomic data as well
as religious beliefs.

6. To request the assignment of proposals for historically Afro-
Latino geographical zones for the development of infrastructural
projects, public services and self-managed economies that
directly benefit Afro-Latinos.

7. Insist on the creation of non-discriminatory political
organizations where Afro-Latinos practice political
participation by right, so that we do not have representatives
speaking for us.

8. To facilitate the ownership of Afro-Latino territory as well as
related rights to the economic exploitatio