Alexis Okeowo, Time, Sept. 15, 2009
The first town of freed African slaves in the Americas is not exactly where you would expect to find it—and it isn’t exactly what you’d expect to find either. First, it’s not in the United States. Yanga, on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, is a sleepy pueblito founded by its namesake, Gaspar Yanga, an African slave who led a rebellion against his Spanish colonial masters in the late 16th century and fought off attempts to retake the settlement. The second thing that is immediately evident to visitors who reach the town’s rustic central plaza: there are virtually no blacks among the few hundred residents milling around the center of town.
Mirroring Mexico’s history itself, most of Yanga’s Afro-Mexican population has been pushed to neighboring rural villages that are notable primarily for their deep poverty and the strikingly dark skin of their inhabitants. Mexico’s independence from Spain and new focus on building a national identity on the idea of mestizaje, or mixed race, drove African Mexicans into invisibility as leaders chose not to count them or assess their needs. Now many blacks want to fight back by improving the shoddy education and social services available to them and are petitioning for the constitution to recognize Afro-Mexicans as a separate ethnic group worthy of special consideration.
{snip}
Many of the country’s mexicanos negros (black Mexicans), as they are called, know that their ancestors arrived in chains on boats that docked at ports in the sultry, steamy state of Veracruz. But they don’t know much else. Indeed, Afro-Mexicans say that much of the history of los mexicanos negros is untaught or ignored by the rest of the country. Apart from Yanga, Afro-Mexicans claim Vicente Guerrero, who served briefly as President in the early 19th century and gave his name to the state of Guerrero, as one of their own, as well as revolutionary José María Morelos, who was executed by the Spaniards in 1815.
Black Mexican activists estimate the population of Afro-Mexicans at about 1 million, but there are no official figures. Earlier this year, they petitioned the National Institute of Statistics and Geography to include the Afro-Mexican population as a separate category in the next census, in 2010. Official statistics do not recognize blacks as a separate ethnic group (56 indigenous groups are officially accredited, the largest ones being the Nahuatl and the Maya, numbering more than 2 million each). As a result, Afro-Mexicans say they have been left out of institutional programs and are without a cultural identity.
{snip}
Afro-Mexican culture expert Luz Maria Montiel acknowledges that blacks are particularly marginalized and excluded, to the point that it is impossible to find any mention of them in official records. Yet she argues that it is impractical for blacks to seek constitutional recognition. “It would be impossible to make a law for each of the populations that make up our multicultural nation,” she says. Dominguez disagrees: “We are a totally different cultural group from indigenous groups and mestizos of our country, with a particular lifestyle and characteristics that do not respond to public policies that are designed for indigenous groups.”
Original article
(Posted on September 17, 2009)
Comments
Dominguez disagrees: “We are a totally different cultural group from indigenous groups and mestizos of our country, with a particular lifestyle and characteristics that do not respond to public policies that are designed for indigenous groups.”
Well Sr. Dominguez sure got that right with that nugget. Now how do we get a black activist in the U.S. to make an analogous comment to that of Sr. Dominguez?
This is probably an outreach thing by ADL, AJC, ACLU, NAACP, LARAZA, NOW CPUSA, Castro, Chavez, Putin etc etc to foment problems and squabbles in Mexico. Hope the Mexican government enjoys dealing with what it sent to the United States.
The Mexican government dealt with that communist inspired so called revolution by indigenous tribes a few years ago. So the commies found a new group to use as a front to make trouble.
“Black Mexican activists estimate the population of Afro-Mexicans at about 1 million…”
The CIA World Factbook estimates Mexico’s population to be 111,211,789 as of July, 2009.
Taking the estimate of Afro-Mexicans at face value*, blacks in Mexico comprise just nine tenths of one percent of Mexico’s total population.
In other words, less than one out of every hundred Mexicans is black. A microscopic minority that is swamped by other, far larger, demographic groups.
Black Mexicans are “marginalized and excluded” not due to the prejudices of the majority of Mexicans, but due to their own numeric insignificance.
So now Mexicans are to ignore demographic realities and “celebrate” blacks whose numbers do not warrant such a focus.
Unlike white Americans, Mexicans will not tolerate a minority group seeking recognition in numbers disproportionate to their share of the population.
*We can assume that these activists elevate the numbers of black people in Mexico. Other statistics I’ve seen from reputable sources state that black Mexicans number no more than 400,00 - 500,000.
It’s not true that Afro-Mexicans aren’t completely appreciated in Mexico. Someone I know took his family on a vacation to Mexico a few decades ago, mainly to visit Copper Canyon. There was one town near C/C that had one black resident. The other residents of the town referred to him as “nuestro moreno,” i.e. our n****r. (Note that while “moreno” literally translates to “black,” in context, moreno is a racial slur.)
Mexicans should be glad their country is a basket case. If it were prosperous, they would be inundated from blacks coming down from the US and all parts of the world, and they would have constant rioting.
Prosperity has been a curse for white Americans. It has encouraged the world’s rejects to migrate here. It will take a complete economic collapse to get rid of just a few of them.
Wherever they’re found, black Africans end up at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. This is simply an immutable law of nature to which there are no exceptions.
But it’s always someone else’s fault, even in their native Africa. Nobody, probably not even the Africans themselves, really believes this, but the fiction must be preserved at all cost, for to face the unpleasant reality that they really are a different human species requires a certain level of courage in a world that inclines toward pleasant fiction rather than unpleasant fact.
Unfortunately, the longer reality is suppressed the more painful will be the reckoning.
If I understand this article, Mexican Bantus do NOT want to be assimilated into Mexican society, but instead want separate and special (i.e. constitutional) treatment. In other words, they want segregation. But they also want economic power. They feel that because they are Bantus, they cannot fit into a culture that was built by and for, the mestizo population.
I have a solution - Mexican Bantus should emigrate to their mother continent of Africa.
“The other residents of the town referred to him as “nuestro moreno,” i.e. our n****r. (Note that while “moreno” literally translates to “black,” in context, moreno is a racial slur.)”
Uh, moreno actually means “brown,” and it’s not typically used as a slur. Mexicans use another word as their equivalent of the n-word.
“Uh, moreno actually means “brown”, and it’s not typically used as a slur. Mexicans use another word as their equivalent of the n-word.”—Poster #8
That’s exactly right. It’s either “Moyo” or “Moyete”in Mexico and I’m sure there are other terms. Or Menim Penguin. Moreno is a non-ofensive term generally related to brown skin tone or just the color brown in general and could be used in reference to Africans, Meztizos, or Indigenous people. This usage of “Moreno” generally holds true throughout Latin America, but despective terms for Afro-Latinos are many and varied and could constitute the raw material for a mini etymology thesis.
”..most of Yanga’s Afro-Mexican population has been pushed to neighboring rural villages that are notable primary for their deep poverty…
More likely they ended up poor because they have the lowest IQs in the land.
“Now many blacks want to fight back by improving the… social services available to them.”
In other words they want more welfare handouts.
My understanding is that pretty close to the same number of Africans were taken as slaves from Africa and sent to Mexico as the number of Africans sent as slaves to what became the United States! Those figures someone can clarify? The WORLD tends to think of the African slave trade as a North American [whitey/U.S.] phenomenon but it obviously was not.
Those Africans taken to Mexico were basically worked to death in the silver mines, replaced by newly arrived slaves who merely took the place of those that had just died?
Found this info:
Total slaves taken out of Africa by the European slave trade: 11,328,000 1450-1900
Taken to:
Brazil - - 4,000,000 35.4 %
Spanish Empire - - 2,500,000 22.1 %
British North America and United States - - 500,000 4.4 %
No real break down of the Spanish Empire. Maybe I can find more?
“pretty close to the same number of Africans were taken as slaves from Africa and sent to Mexico as the number of Africans sent as slaves to what became the United States!”
You’re right. The number of African slaves sent to North America was merely a small fraction of the total. But yet, Americans today get all the blame and the wrath of the world for our “racism” and our “history of slavery”. Some of the very countries in Latin America condemning us today had many more slaves than we did. And they’ve done nothing to help them since, either.
The reason we get all the blame?
2. As whites, Americans are far more susceptible to appeals to guilt, charity, altruism which can be exploited for others’ benefit. Most Latin Americans (and non-whites everywhere) couldn’t care less about those things. Such idealistic concepts would be considered laughable. Latin Americans and non-whites look out for themselves only and don’t care about the next guy — especially someone of another race.
The WORLD tends to think of the African slave trade as a North American [whitey/U.S.] phenomenon but it obviously was not.
Black Americans more than anyone, hold this belief. I have seen many of them argue, that black slaves were actually treated as equals in Latin America, and many also believe that Mestizos had more of a romantic interest in them, to the point that many Black Americans believe that most Mestizos are highly mixed with black ancestry. Some of them are so ignorant of how things are there, that they believe most Latin countries do not even recognize race, and that whether black, white, or mixed, all simply consider themselves fellow Latino’s and Latina’s. None of these long held beliefs of theirs are grounded in reality, of course! Few of them have even left North America, and have no clue of what life is like in those countries. But many carry this fantasy that if they were to travel to places like Brazil, white looking supermodels ( who consider themselves black) will throw themselves at them.
“Black Americans more than anyone, hold this belief. … Few of them have even left North America, and have no clue what life is like in those countries. But many carry this fantasy that if they were to travel to places like Brazil, white looking supermodels ( who consider themselves black) will throw themselves at them.”
Very true. It is a fantasy. As usual, people who don’t know talk the loudest.
I have had blacks (many times) in the US tell me what a great country Brazil is and that: “There are beautiful people in Brazil”. None of them had ever been there.
I have been there and know the opposite to be true. In fact, I knew one who finally went there, after dreaming of it all his life, and he came back horribly disillusioned! (He also came back with parasites.) He never spoke of it again.
Incidentally, “moreno” means simply “dark” …or brown or brunet, dusky. It is not a racial slur. In fact, morenita or negrita are often terms of affection.
I knew a woman in Chile who had some Indian ancestry. She was darker than most Chileans and casually described herself as “morena” …(tan or brown). But when I asked her about blacks in Chile, she was very emphatic that there were NO blacks in Chile at all. None!
(Actually, there are some, but a very tiny number: fewer than 0.1% )
Many Chileans will proudly tell you that racism does not exist in Chile. (Same in Brazil.) But all you have to do is steer the conversation towards Peruvians and Bolivians and it soon reveals itself. Most Chileans can’t even recognize it in themselves. They assume their prejudices are just normal. That’s Latin hypocrisy for you.
There are decendants of black slaves in Chile.I know one,and a costal town in Equador is almost all black-decendents of slaves.Belize has a lot.Moreno to me means black allright,but also refered to being moslem. All blacks(moslems)Morrocans,Jews were expelled from Spain after 1492,and many found their way to the Americas,and later blacks came as slaves-bought from moslem slave dealers in africa.There are enclaves in the northern parts of So.America that reflect the culture of runaway Africans going back to early days of slave trade into So.America.I had a friend who documented these people. The Spaniards worked the Indians to death in the mines etc.,as they were not all that good at being slaves-(They died working the mines)so Blacks were imported..My friend from Peru is one ,as I said-She is on of the smartest persons I know.There are decendants of black slave trade in India,and East Timor in Indonesia.One can see the racial imput in this old Portugese colony..To fond blacks in Latin america is no mystery,but they are being influenced by the the left every where now -want separate status.This is going on in Australia,New Zealand is rife with Maori nationalism.Tribalism is rife all over the world today..for good or for worse..
