Stuck at the gates of paradise - racism in Brazil

UNESCO Courier, Sept, 2001 by Diane Kuperman

Black slaves were introduced into what is now Colombia by the first Spanish conquistadors. From the very beginning they clustered in communities largely along the northern coast close to Cartagena, the principle "black port" of the era, as well as on the western Pacific coastline and the Caribbean archipelago of San Andres and Providencia.

The "Afro-Colombians"--as they are officially known--also live in the country's big and medium-sized cities, such as Cartagena, Buenaventura, Cali, Turbo, Barranquilla or Medellin, places where their segregation takes on all the features of marginalization. "In Cartagena, the only blacks who can enter certain clubs and restaurants are those who are serving, in Bogota and Cali, most domestic servants are black, often dressed in pink uniforms," explains Luz Riviera.

Over time, continued discrimination has led many to setting up home in rural, isolated areas, where they live in virtually self-sufficient communities working on small land-holdings or as employees for large farms. Some simply live on the fish they can catch.

Life in such communities is not much better than in other parts of the country. According to the Third report on the Human Rights Situation in Colombia, carried out for the Organization of American States and published in 1999, "a disproportionate number of blacks live in conditions of extreme poverty." Afro-Colombians inhabit some of the most conflict-ridden parts of the country and earn incomes below the national per capita average, illiteracy rates both in rural and urban areas remain extremely large, while black communities suffer high rates of infant mortality and serious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, gastro-enteritis and lung infections. The report puts this down to a lack of drinking water, electricity and basic medical services.

Faced with their exclusion from the rest of society, many communities continue to ca-operate closely with groups of indigenous peoples, with whom they first formed links under slavery when blacks were forced to work in gold and silver mines while Indians tilled the land. Luz Riviera has studied these inter-ethnic relations in an isolated village on the banks of the Guayabero river in the region of Serrania del Baudo.

"Thirty or so black families living there have created ritual family ties with indigenous families living deeper in the jungle. What frequently happens is that an indigenous person asks a black man to be the godfather of his son, sealing a relation of compadrazgo [joint fatherhood] which helps make the lives of both families somewhat easier in light of the discrimination both suffer."