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This is the situation of black people in Latin America

2020-06-09T15:00:34.027Z


Poverty, unemployment, a lower educational level and difficulties in accessing adequate housing are common factors for black people in Latin America.


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Brazil: anti-racism protests in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo 2:28

(CNN Spanish) - Around the world they protest the death of George Floyd in police custody in the United States, which revived the debate on structural inequalities between black and white people in the country. The figures indicate that Latin America is not free from the discrimination that becomes so visible in the northern neighbor. On the contrary.

In Latin America, approximately 24% of the population was black in 2015, equivalent to about 133 million people according to census data from 16 countries compiled by the World Bank in 2018. In other words, one in four People identified themselves as Afro-descendant, according to the categories defined in the report “Afro-descendants in Latin America Towards a framework for inclusion”.

The distribution of this population is very uneven among the different countries. In Brazil and Venezuela there are more than 91% of people of African descent in the region, with 105 million and 17 million people of African descent, respectively. In third place is Colombia with 5 million, followed by Mexico with 1.5 million and Ecuador with 1.2 million.

READ: The inequality between blacks and whites in the United States in 6 hard charts

Black citizens killed by police in the US 7:44

Poverty

One of the common factors of people of African descent in the region is poverty. The World Bank states in its 2018 report that black people are "the largest excluded minority in the region." And this, stresses the agency, crosses countries with very different characteristics: in Brazil, for example, they are twice as likely to be poor as whites. In neighboring Uruguay, which has one of the lowest percentages of Afro-descendant population in the region and is recognized for its equality indices, they are three times more likely.

Obtaining data on people of African descent is one of the great challenges when studying what is happening in the region. For decades in the censuses of many countries, people of African descent were not distinguished, but in recent years the situation has changed. There is now more statistical data to demonstrate the overrepresentation of blacks among the region's poor. In fact, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, “despite a significant process of poverty reduction and extreme poverty in Latin America between 2002 and 2014, as well as income inequality measured by the coefficient Gini (index that measures inequality in the distribution of income among the inhabitants of a country), important racial inequalities persist in these indicators.

Coronavirus, ECLAC's plan against poverty 0:59

According to the World Bank, in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Uruguay combined —the countries that have the data disaggregated by race—, Afro-descendants are 38% of the population, but they represent 47% of the poor and the 49% of people in extreme poverty.

Poor neighborhoods, more homicides

Another fact that reflects the inequality between blacks and whites in the region is access to adequate housing. According to World Bank data, in 10 Latin American countries there are more Afro-descendants than non-Afro-descendants in poor neighborhoods or favelas.

Image of the Pavao-Pavaozinho favela in Rio de Janeiro on May 22, 2020 (Mauro Pimentel / AFP / Getty Images).

In addition to having less access to basic services and being victims of stigmatization that can reduce their opportunities, living in poor neighborhoods or favelas can also make black people more exposed to violence. On this subject, the data in Brazil is very significant.

The Atlas of Violence 2019 shows that 75.5% of homicide victims in 2017 in Brazil were black, out of a total of 65,602 cases.

That same report warns that homicides of black people grew by 33.1% between 2007 and 2017, while homicides among non-blacks increased in that period by 3.3%.

READ: The police in the United States shoot, kill and imprison more people than in other developed countries. These are the data

Education

Improvements in access to education in the region positively impacted the black population, but failed to match their situation with white ones.

According to World Bank data, about 64% of the members of Afro-descendant households completed primary education against 83% of the non-Afro-descendant population. The gap only increases in the following educational levels: 30% of Afro-descendants completed high school versus 46% of non-Afro-descendants and 5% completed tertiary education against 14% of their non-Afro-descendant peers.

Less and worse employment

The World Bank states that unemployment levels for people of African descent are highest in all countries in the region. Furthermore, there are clear differences in the type of jobs held by people of African descent and their white peers. In Latin America unemployment affects more black and indigenous people, and within these ethnic groups especially women and youth, according to a report presented in the framework of the II Meeting of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean .

On the other hand, when comparing workers of different races who share other variables such as educational level, age, experience and type of employment, in several countries white people earn more. This is the case of Brazil, where, under the same conditions, Afro-descendants earn 16% less, and Peru, with 6.5% less profit.

The problem of invisibility

The history of blacks in Latin America is the history of slavery. It is estimated that between 5 and 10 million blacks were brought from Africa as slaves between the 16th and 19th centuries. The last country to completely abolish slavery in the region was Brazil, in 1888.

According to the World Bank, during the second half of the 19th century, “whitening” began in the region, a series of “policies, discourses and practices based on the idea that white and European elements were superior to African or indigenous” that they made the marginalization of the black population continue even after slavery had ended.

This type of theories began to fall into disuse around 1930, when the myth of racial democracy emerged. “Led by post-revolutionary Mexico, national elites began to abandon whitening ideologies in favor of narratives that emphasized the existence of harmonious race relations, evidenced in celebrating the nation's mestizo composition. Mestizo identity was adopted as a strategy to cut through the colonial past and the racial antagonisms of the early republican period, ”states the World Bank. In the framework of this new paradigm, making the differences between the different races visible did not take place, and many countries stopped considering them even in their statistical censuses.

Decades of struggle by civil society organizations and new changes in paradigms have made the peculiarities of the Afro-descendant population stand out in recent years. In several countries in the region, policies to promote the rights of black people were defined and race began to be taken into account in censuses. However, the data shows that actions are still not enough to reverse inequality with respect to the white population.

And also, of course, the coronavirus

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) alerted governments in the region to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Afro-descendant population.

READ: Latin America is losing the battle against the coronavirus

In the report "Implications of COVID-19 in the Afro-descendant population of Latin America and the Caribbean", UNFPA mentions multiple risks that the countries of the region must take into account since, although the virus affects people of all races, “extreme measures” must be taken to serve the populations most affected by inequality, including those of African descent.

Indigenous immigrants in the US and the risks by covid-19 3:04

In terms of health, the UN agency mentions inequality in access to care and supplies, problems in access to water and sanitation in some communities that make them unable to meet hygiene requirements to prevent transmission of the virus and the restriction of essential health services that would make people of African descent unable to access the necessary controls, for example in cases of pregnancy. They also point out difficulties in accessing quality information about covid-19.

MIRA: Analysis in New York shows greater impact of covid-19 on Hispanics and blacks

At the educational level, the difficulties in accessing the internet and the equipment necessary to be able to follow distance education stand out, as well as the loss of food programs in educational centers that are fundamental for people of African descent in situations of poverty.

Regarding employment, UNFPA maintains that the measures of the governments in general are oriented to the formal sectors, so that "the informal sectors where there is a greater concentration of Afro-descendants" are left aside.

George Floyd

Source: cnnespanol

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