Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Bawon Samedi]

Love, Afro-Brazilian Style: Afrodengo Is Making It Easier to Find Black Love in Brazil

Courtesy of Thaisa Moreira Xavier and Jackson Xavier

Thaisa Moreira Xavier met her husband in a Facebook group.

Although she was conscious of her Afro-Brazilian heritage, she had few black friends growing up. The city she lived in and schools she attended were mostly white. But when she moved to Campinas, a city of 1 million approximately two hours outside of Sao Paulo, she decided to be proactive.



“I wanted to increase my connection to Afro-Brazilian people,” she says.

Thaisa joined Afrodengo, an Afro-Brazilian dating community on Facebook. When she finally got up the nerve to post her photo and introduced herself—a requirement of the community—she noticed that one guy who “liked” her photo lived in her city. His name was Jackson Xavier.

She reached out to him on Facebook and they immediately started talking. Two days later, they went out on their first date. She instantly liked his intelligence, responsibility and the way he cared for her. He liked her stubbornness, humor and intelligence as well. Five months later, the couple were married. As Jackson explains:

Before the group, I didn’t even think to look for relationships with black women, and I had never had a black girlfriend. But once I entered the group, I started to focus more on having a relationship with a black person like me because we have similar experiences. The black movement is very strong on the internet, so I entered the group wanting to see more beautiful black people and to have references in my life to black things.


View attachment upload_2018-2-4_11-42-53.gif
Courtesy of Thaisa Moreira Xavier and Jackson Xavier
Afrodengo was created one year ago by Afro-Brazilian journalist and single mother Lorena Ifé, 29, to promote love and marriage among Afro-Brazilians. “Dengo” is a word with African roots that Brazilians—especially Afro-Brazilians—call people to show love and care. Despite the country’s African origins, hundreds of years of slavery and European colonialism have made affection and stable relationships between black women and black men in Brazil unique and unusual.

Now Afro-Brazilians are flocking to the Afrodengo Facebook group to build relationships that they never before considered having. But Ifé not only wants to spark love among Afro-Brazilians; she also wants to help them build relationships with one another so that they can combat racism in Brazil. She explains:

Having relationships between black people is a way to combat racism. Only a black person will know how racism affects you and its consequences in our lives. In a society where we learn to hate ourselves, if we unite with people like us, then we can combat racism with something as simple as having a conscious family.


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The Afrodengo logo (courtesy of Afrodengo)
To jump-start the group, Ifé invited Afro-Brazilian men and women to post photos and descriptions of themselves. Within a week, it exploded—with both members and photos. At one point, Ifé had more than 10,000 people waiting to be approved to the group. Ifé created an environment where every type of black person, regardless of sexuality, sex, religion or political viewpoint, is welcome.

Today the group is still going strong; having produced at least two marriages and countless couples and friendships. There are more than 100,000 members in the main group and its affiliates (which focus on LGBT members, Christians and body positivity). Ifé plans to turn the Facebook group into an app.


View attachment upload_2018-2-4_11-42-53.gif
Courtesy of Afrodengo
While Afro-Brazilians enjoy the group, some white Brazilians consider Ifé and the group racist because it is exclusively for black people. For African Americans, a dating site for black people seems obvious. But for Brazilians, communities restricted by race are always frowned upon. White Brazilians also want to be a part of the group.

“To this day, I have to deny entrance to white people who want to join the group,” Ifé said.


The creation of Afrodengo stems from Ifé’s personal experiences pursuing amor afrocentrado—”black love”— in Salvador, Brazil. While in a relationship with her son’s father, she felt that their relationship lacked the affection she sees given to white women in Brazil. Soon after they broke up, she tried her hand at online dating and even created a profile on Tinder. But although she lives in a city that is more than 80 percent black, she couldn’t find any black men on the platform.

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Lorena Ifé and her son (Kiratiana Freelon)
Ifé says she wasn’t raised with affection—which is common among poor Afro-Brazilians simply trying to survive. Personally, she longs for a black man who will cherish her intelligence and give her affection when she wants—even when she doesn’t need it. She still longs for an “Afrodengo.”

Creating this Afrodengo [was] a way to help me survive and help others going through a similar situation. It helped me to move on from my relationship and survive my depression.


Ifé’s struggle is one that many black women in Brazil share. Many of their lives are marked by loneliness (solidão da Mulher Negra) because they aren’t chosen—the chosen women being white women. In Brazil, black and mixed-race women have been traditionally oversexualized or looked upon as domestic servants, while white women are viewed as the perfect women to give affection to and to have a healthy marriage with. It is a given that the more money and education an Afro-Brazilian has, the more likely he will marry a white woman.

Translating from a YouTube video by anthropologist Ana Cláudia Pacheco, a professor at the State University of Bahia:

Because of historical reasons related to racism, many black women in Brazil suffer from solitude. ... Our choices in who we give affection to and who we choose as a partner are still regulated by and structured by racism and sexism.


But Afrodengo isn’t just for creating romantic relationships; Afro-Brazilian men and women are using the group to strengthen their black identity and create friendships with Afro-Brazilians across Brazil. Says early adopter Gabriel Rangel, 25, from Rio de Janeiro:

I still haven’t found a relationship through Afrodengo, but now I have friends all over the country, and the group has really opened my mind to the Black Movement in Brazil.

Member Lais Mello entered the group one week after it launched. Adopted by a white family, she’d lacked a strong connection to Afro-Brazilian culture. She created the first city-specific WhatsApp group for Afrodengo, which helped her organize meetups in Salvador and make friends with Afro-Brazilians close to her town in Bahia. Now Mello is a moderator of the group, and credits Afrodengo with increasing her self-esteem and pulling her out of depression:

Before Afrodengo, I wouldn’t leave the house because of my depression and anxiety. My self-esteem was so low. But now I love going to Afrodengo meetups.


Ifé has grand plans for the Afrodengo brand. The first thing she wants to do is get off of Facebook and create an app for the group. She’s currently looking for funding and support, and plans to apply to the Vale de Dendê accelerator, which is targeting Afro-Brazilian startups based in Salvador.

I want to turn Afrodengo into a company that promotes affection between black people, whether it be through books, events, T-shirts, dating apps, everything.

 

[AB Ziggy]

Tu Pum Pum: As Reggaeton Goes Pop, Never Forget the Genre’s Black Roots

By Eddie Cepeda | 2 hours ago

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

Reggaeton began organically as a transformation of dancehall, hip-hop, and reggae en español. As an Afro-diasporic movement, Panama, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and New York are all pivotal landscapes in the style’s musical evolution. Through Tu Pum Pum: The Story of Reggaeton, a new column by Eddie Cepeda, we’ll explore reggaeton’s history, sociopolitical struggles, and its impact as a global force in music and culture.

In 2017, “Despacito” became a global pop culture phenomenon. It was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 2018 Grammys, the first mostly Spanish-language track to hold that honor in both categories.

But its success last year was complicated. Some fans and critics viewed reggaeton’s re-entry to the top of the U.S. charts as a come-up for Latinxs in the music industry – a cathartic affirmation of our place not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The fact that a Spanish-language song reached no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the era of Donald Trump’s raging vitriol can be framed as a testament to the enduring legacy of our cultures. Yet others view it not as a triumph, but reggaeton’s blanqueamiento – an affront to the Afro-diasporic pioneers who literally had to fight for their right to dembow.

As a new wave of highly marketable pop-reggaeton has taken hold of the music industry, the artists at the forefront of the movement have started to look less and less like the genre’s pioneers. Many see these stars are purposely palatable to white, North American audiences – and light-skinned and white Latinos, whose class privilege helped shape negative attitudes towards reggaeton during its commercial explosion. But it wasn’t long ago that the genre now proudly touted as “Reggaeton Latino” existed within a subculture shunned by mainstream society.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

Before Justin Bieber talked his way into reggaeton history, and before Luis Fonsi was named Puerto Rico’s tourism ambassador in the whirlwind of “Despacito’s” success, reggaeton had to battle for acceptance. It existed as a lowbrow, stigmatized genre, shackled to a legacy of racism and colorism, first in Panama, and then in Puerto Rico once it was consolidated as the music we recognize today.

Proto-reggaeton, or “underground,” began in part when Vico C and DJ Negro met in the mid-80s. Their mutual affinity for Afro-diasporic music included hip-hop, dancehall, the plena of Panama, and beyond. They’re viewed as the godfathers of reggaeton, although the sampled beats on their early underground mixtapes came mostly from mainland hip-hop records. These early tapes have few signs of the dembow riddim, but they opened the door for Spanish-language rappers in Puerto Rico to have a platform. Initially only producing about 20 copies (according to scholar Raquel Z. Rivera), the music spread through informal distribution networks, with fans sharing and copying the tapes mostly within caseríos, public housing projects in Puerto Rico.

At first, the underground movement went largely unnoticed by those outside the projects, considering the caseríos were (and to a large extent still are) some of the most neglected and marginalized communities of Puerto Rico. But the organic growth of the genre via the bootleg tapes and CDs eventually captured the attention of local audiences.

Then, reggae en español, pioneered by Panamanian descendants of West Indians who migrated to the isthmus to work on the Panama Canal, began circulating in Puerto Rico. Panamanian plena from artists like El General, Nando Boom, and Renato influenced underground artists on the island. “Reggae” or dembow riddims started dominating the scene as underground grew. The danceability of the dembow riddim, with the addition of timbal accents on the backbeat, fueled early reggaeton’s popularity. By the time DJ Playero’s wildly successful Playero 38 was released in 1994, dembow drove the sound of underground. Featuring performances from Daddy Yankee (Yankee’s debut was on Playero’s Playero 34 in 1992), Frankie Boy and Yaviah, Playero 38 helped catapult underground into the bedrooms, clubs, and Walkmans of Puerto Rico’s youth. The 1994 release of Wiso G’s Sin Parar, the first underground album on an official record label (NRT Inc.), brought the kind of attention and notoriety that sent mainstream Puerto Rican culture into a full hysteria against the genre.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

During the anti-crime initiative Mano Dura Contra el Crimen, championed by then newly elected governor Pedro Rosselló, and lasting from 1993-1999, government officials targeted reggaeton fans by raiding caseríos where the genre was flourishing. The music incensed the Puerto Rican government to the extent that raids included record stores that sold mixtapes. This censorship – justified by writers and politicians with a profound disdain for reggaeton – bore a striking resemblance to the censorship faced by the bomba of the previous generation. In February of 1995, Puerto Rico’s police department, in conjunction with the National Guard, raided six record stores in and around San Juan. The raids were part of Operation Centurion, which fell under the Mano Dura Contra el Crimen, and sought to control the marginalized communities of Puerto Rico’s population in the caseríos. As Petra Rivera-Rideau writes in her book Remixing Reggaeton, Operation Centurion marked these poor, mostly black neighborhoods as key sites for violence, hypersexuality, and drug use.

The raids weren’t meant to seize drugs, weapons, or even to stop prostitution. The targets were cassettes. The demand for underground tapes had spread out of the urban core and into the suburbs of Puerto Rico, where the children of well-to-do business people and politicians had perreo fever. Fueled by the conservative watch group Morality in Media, the anti-reggaeton campaign raged on. Citing violent and hypersexualized lyrics, Morality in Media argued that Puerto Rico’s youth was being led to indulge in rampant sex, drugs, and violence against others. Subsequent raids on public schools focused on the confiscation of weapons, drug paraphernalia, alcohol, and underground music. Reggaeton was officially contraband.

There’s no denying that reggaeton’s subject matter did often highlight violence, sexuality, and misogyny – though Afro Puerto Rican artists like Tego Calderón used the platform early on to voice their issues with classism and racism. But the thought of criminalizing free speech was absurd, as history showed time and time again that it was bound to fail. Many reggaetoneros chose to refocus their lyrical content, a move that only brought more attention to the embattled genre and its proponents.

Aside from the temporary inconvenience of lost merchandise and frivolous arrests, the raids on the stores did little to curb reggaeton’s ascent. But the op-eds, press conferences, and raids persisted – and with them came a groundswell in reggaeton’s popularity. More and more of the population embraced the genre, as elements of Puerto Rico’s folkloric identity seeped into the music. Though dembow – a riddim read as “black” – remained at the center, the sound shifted to include instrumentation traditionally associated with Latin music, like timbales and the tres. Luny Tunes’ Mas Flow and Tego Calderón’s El Abayarde (both released in 2003) used more obvious cultural signifiers of Latinidad with their heavy bachata guitar riffs and bomba influences. These inherited musical legacies melded with reggaeton’s identity, taking the genre – as Wayne Marshall said in a 2009 anthology about reggaeton’s commercialization – “from música negra” to “reggaeton Latino,” which meant heightened acceptance among Puerto Rico’s white population.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

But the government wasn’t ready to give up the fight. The next target of their ire was the alleged pornography and objectification of women in music videos. Like the Mano Dura era, this attack also fell flat, as many of the women in the videos praised the opportunities they carved out as a result of their appearances. Some, like Jenny la Sexy Voz and Glory, used their sexuality to game a fundamentally patriarchal and oppressive system, crafting important roles as backup up singers or eventually branching out into solo careers.

Reggaeton wouldn’t be stopped; its popularity grew exponentially with each passing political condemnation. As we all know, Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” and N.O.R.E.’s “Oye Mi Canto” catapulted reggaeton into the international lexicon in the mid-aughts. Don Omar declared the genre “Reggaeton Latino,” while Luny Tunes familiarized the world with bachata-style requintos. Artists like Shakira and Alejandro Sanz jumped on the trend, pushing reggaeton towards a more widely acceptable, “whitened” iteration.

As the success of “Despacito” shows, reggaeton is now pop music. “Despacito” holds a similar historical significance as the “Macarena;” both are the only mostly Spanish-language songs to reach no. 1 on the American charts since “La Bamba.” Both are pasteurized versions of genres that were once black and marginalized, but gained mainstream visibility, and thus white acceptance: “Macarena” with its faux-techno foundation, “Despacito,” a standard pop number with a dembow-derived rhythm. And both are songs about sexual gratification that have surely tricked more than their fair share of church-going suburbanites into dancing on a cruise ship.

But no matter how many records a reggaeton single breaks, some will continue to attack the genre they perceive as low-class and crude – like Aleks Syntek, who recently suggested the genre comes from apes, a snide and racist reference to its black roots.

Colorism is alive and strong, and people like Syntek seemingly face little backlash for their contemptuous views on black culture. Nevermind the fact that Syntek is deeply indebted to the Afro-diasporic genres of hip-hop and house in many of his endeavors, including the unintentionally comical project Calo.

Reggaeton has come a long way from the besieged “música negra” of the caseríos. And it’s more important now than ever to tell the story of how it got here. Reggaeton’s increased visibility will undoubtedly lead to further dilution of the genre, which purists say is already coming in the form of the “sanded-down” new wave of Colombian artists leading the genre’s charge over the charts. The gradual blanqueamiento of a genre is nothing new. Jazz, blues, and disco have all suffered from similar battles – both from attempted regulation and from industry sanitization. The Larry Levans of yesteryear are replaced by the Diplos of today.

Musical commodification is never monolithic. There’s complex nuance in a genre’s growth. Reggaeton’s domination is important for Latinx visibility on a global scale, but at what price? As the genre increases in acceptance and popularity, it’s key to remember that it was considered low-class and dangerous when it was predominantly read as black. The image that reggaeton’s new wave of marketable, light-skinned stars portray sweeps its origins as “música negra” under the rug, and affirms colorism’s strong grip on Latin American culture. That’s not to say that the artists leading reggaeton’s pop surge shouldn’t be allowed to the party. But a truly inclusive understanding of Latinidad and its diverse, complex communities should represent all facets of it – especially the Afro-diasporic communities who created it.

Tu Pum Pum: As Reggaeton Goes Pop, Never Forget the Genre’s Black Roots

It's like the mid-2000s had gotten erased from everyone's memories.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

It's like the mid-2000s had gotten erased from everyone's memories.

Heck I hardly even see Puerto Ricans(the blacker ones) or Dominicans(especially...) fukking with that shyt. That genre has completely been taken by Central Americans/Mexicans and Cubans. lol.

 

[BigMan]

Heck I hardly even see Puerto Ricans(the blacker ones) or Dominicans(especially...) fukking with that shyt. That genre has completely been taken by Central Americans/Mexicans and Cubans. lol.

What? Puerto Ricans and Colombians are dominated reggaeton

 

[AB Ziggy]

What? Puerto Ricans and Colombians are dominated reggaeton

He forgets Daddy Yankee and J Balvin are spitting out hits today. Never heard of a Central American reggaeton artist

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Im not talking about artists but PEOPLE... Here in NY I mostly see Central American ppl like Guatemalans bumping that shyt. Most PRs and Dominicans I know moved on to trap.

 

[BigMan]

Im not talking about artists but PEOPLE... Here in NY I mostly see Central American ppl like Guatemalans bumping that shyt. Most PRs and Dominicans I know moved on to trap.

Regardless reggaeton is still much bigger than spanish trap and is still dominating by Ricans
Dominicans were never into reggaeton like that either

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Regardless reggaeton is still much bigger than spanish trap and is still dominating by Ricans
Dominicans were never into reggaeton like that either

Yea I notice Dominicans never fukked with that crap like that

Maybe im getting Dominicans and PRs mixed up.

 

[BigMan]

Yea I notice Dominicans never fukked with that crap like that

Maybe im getting Dominicans and PRs mixed up.

Dominicans never want to get confused with Ricans...they listen to their dembow and bachata

 

[Yehuda]

Supreme Federal Court maintains rules for demarcation of quilombos and rejects "time frame"

João Fellet - @joaofellet
From BBC Brasil in Brasília
February 8 2018

Representatives of quilombolas claim that land titling is important to ensure safety and access to public policies | Photo: Ag. Brasil

The Supreme Federal Court on this Thursday ruled the presidential decree that defines the rites for demarcation of quilombola lands constitutional, rejecting a legal action launched by the old PFL (current Democrats Party) that asked for a revision of regulations and could hold up approximately 1,5 thousand legal proceedings.

Ten ministers voted for the constitutionality of the decree, and only one — rapporteur Cesar Peluzo, who left the court in 2012, when the trial began — voted against it.

The decision was considered "historic" by many quilombolas. "The Brazilian State gave a step ahead in the process of reparations for everything that happened to our people", said to BBC Brazil Demildo "Biko" Rodrigues, member of Conaq — Coordenação Nacional das Comunidades Negras Rurais Quilombolas (National Coordenating of Black Rural Quilombola Communities).

He said the easy score in the voting surprised the communities "due to the dark times we have been through".

The Supreme Court also rejected a proposition made by minister Dias Toffoli for the establishing of a "time frame" for all demarcation of quilombola and indigenous lands.

According to the principle, only the indians and quilombolas who occupied their lands when the Constitution of 1988 was enacted had the right to claim them. The adoption of the time frame concept is defended by the ruralist seats in Congress, but combated by indians and quilombolas, many of whom claim to have been expelled from their original territories before 1988.

Party that questioned the rules of demarcation of quilombola lands has changed its stance and said that legal action was a mistake | Photo: Ag. Pará

According to Toffoli, the lack of a "time frame" has halted the demarcations, as it have made them more complex. He said the principle should only not be observed in cases where the community has been kept apart from their ancestral lands through "illicit acts".

On the other hand, minister Edson Fachin stated that many communities would have trouble in proving the ownership of the lands before 1988, as the "quilombola realities were absolutely invisible up until recently". The stance was endorsed by most of his colleagues.

"Mistake"

The Direct Action of Unconstitutionality 3.239 — brought to the Supreme Court when the Democrats were still named PFL, in 2003 — questioned the validity of a presidential decree that defines the criteria for the demarcation of these areas.

On Tuesday, the current president of Democrats, senator José Agripino Maia, said to BBC Brazil that the party has changed its stance on the issue and that they had commited a "mistake" by proposing the legal action. But as the trial had already began, there was no way to remove it. Legal experts assessed that, had the decree been overtuned, the demarcations would pause until the establishment of new rules, which did not have a deadline to occur.

Disputes between quiolombolas and ruralists expose disagreements over the legal interpretation of the concept of quilombo | Photo: Imprensa MG

According to Incra (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária — National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) 220 quilombola territories have been titled in the country, and 1,5 thousand were in the process of regularization. Several proceedings have dragged on for more than a decade.

Self-identification

The legal action proposed by the PFL said, amongst other things, that the demarcation of the quilombos could not be regulated by the Presidency but by the Congress.

The decree that regulates the matter was signed in 2003 by then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and changed the procedures of demarcation, turning it into a competence of Incra. Up until then, the role was assumed by Fundação Palmares, linked to the Ministry of Culture.

The legal action also questioned the quilombos' possibility of self-identifying. For the PFL, only communities founded by runaway slaves could be considered quilombolas and claim land.

The Supreme Federal Court decided, however, that self-identification is legitimate.

In the last decades, among quilombolas, the Associação Brasileira de Antropologia (Aba — Brazilian Association of Anthropology)'s understanding of how the term quilombo applies to black communities that "developed resistence practices in the maintenance and reproduction of their characteristic ways of life in a determined area", not necessarily founded by ex-slaves, has prevailed.

For Demildo "Biko" Rodrigues, of Conaq, the Supreme Federal Court decision "is a first step, but there is still a long way to ensure that our rights are carried out".

He said the main goal of the communities now is to "engage in dialogue with the Executive power to mobilize resources to accelerate the proceedings" in the demarcation process.

Supreme Federal Court maintains rules for demarcation of quilombos and rejects "time frame"

 

[newarkhiphop]

Regardless reggaeton is still much bigger than spanish trap and is still dominating by Ricans
Dominicans were never into reggaeton like that either

to me there one in the same and I been listening to stuff since it was considered "underground" , I actually consider Spanish trap a evolution of reggaeton

 

[Yehuda]

Suriname is the only country in South America without prison overcrowding, says study

All the other countries have more prisoners than space. Survey also points to high rates of provisional detention.

By Juliana Cardilli, G1
02/09/2018 07h31 Uptaded 02/09/2018 17h18

Only 1 of the 12 countries in South America has less prisoners than space in the prison system, according to a report done with the support of Pastoral Carcerária and obtained by G1. Only Suriname does not have prison overcrowding; Bolivia and Peru are the countries with the biggest prisoner surpluses in the continent.

The high rate of provisional detentions exacerbates this problem — in five countries, at least half the inmates is still waiting for trial. Brazil, in spite of not leading the numbers in overcrowding or provisional detention, has the highest number of inmates per 100,000 inhabitants among the analyzed countries — 352.

"All of this indicates that a huge problem exists in the judicial system in these countries, a strong, abusive use of provisional detention", says lawyer Almir Valente Felitte, agent of Pastoral Carcerária and author of Relatório Simplificado da Situação Carcerária na América do Sul 2018 — Simplified Report of the Prison Situation in South America 2018. "The high provisional detention rates show the slowness of justice in all of the countries as well as the strong conservatism of the court system in the continent".

Despite some peculiarities, the numbers provided by the governments point to, says Felitte, a very similar system in all countries, with several common points, amplified by the punitive culture of South America".

Check below some highlights of the report.

Overcrowding

Overcrowding is a serious problem in the majority of the continent. Bolivia and Peru take the lead, with 289% and 231% of occupancy.

Only Suriname has more space than prisoners, occupying 75% of the prison system. However, there are more Surinamese imprisoned in the Netherlands than in their home country — 3,200 against 1,000, respectively — which shows that the prison question is also a problem in the country.

Provisional detention

In addition to being the country with the biggest prisoner surplus in relation to the number of prison space, Bolivia also comes in third between the countries with the highest percentage of provisional detentions — 69,7%.

Paraguay, with 76% of prisoners awaiting trial, and Venezuela, with 73% in the same situation, lead the statistic.

In Bolivia's case, Felitte points out that the country has gone through a reform in its criminal procedure, precisely to reduce provisional detentions.

"However, this number grew ridiculously. Many scholars in the country believe that this is due in large part to the conservatism of the court system, and due to an attempt to serve a type of public cry, a kind of penal populism", he says.

Chile, which has one of the lowest rates of prisoners awaiting trial in the continent — 33.4% — had a reduction in the last years due to a reform which facilitated the implementation of alternative measures.

"I think that's a path that should be followed by all countries in South America — for provisional detention as well as for alternative sanctions", says the lawyer. In 2015, 42% of sentences in the country had alternative measures.

Prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants

Brazil leads the statistic, with 352 prisoners for every 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Uruguay, with 322, Guyana, with 278, and Peru, with 267.

The report's author, however, emphasizes that countries with small populations can have distorted data, because it's easy for the rate to stay high (which is Uruguay and Guyana's case).

Even then, no country in the continent can be considered "non-incarcerator". "Comparing with developed countries in Europe, this rate in South America is more than 100 above. Some countries have a 40, 50 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants rate. The lowest one here, Bolivia, has a 148 rate", says Felitte.

Class and gender

Despite the paucity of social statistics about the inmates, some compiled data can point to the vulnerability of poor people and how the war on drugs victimizes them — with women being especially affected.

In countries that have data about the type of sentence behind the imprisonment, it's possible to see that the percentage of women locked for drug trafficking is much higher than the men's.

The social class also has an impact. In Peru, 57% of inmates worked previously as drivers, bricklayers or agriculturists — generally lower income occupations. In Argentina, 45% were unemployed before prison.

Felitte also highlights the high number of incarcerations for crimes that aren't necessarily violent. Illegal drug trade, though often associated with violent crimes, isn't classified that way itself.

"There's a huge number of people locked for petty theft, crimes against property. With the exception of Argentina, there's not a huge number of people locked for homicide, kidnapping, rape. It's not that they don't occur, the numbers don't add up. There are a lot of people locked for non-violent crimes and few people locked for violent crimes."

The lawyer did the research based on data provided by official bodies — and in some cases provided by NGO's. The majority of countries limit themselves to gather more basic information, without the inmates' social data and sometimes without even indicating the motive behind the imprisonment.

The updating of information is also a problem — Brazil's data, for example, is from 2016, while Chile, Peru and Uruguay, among others, have information about the prison population updated in 2017.

Overcrowded cell in Prison Compound of Papuda, in Brasília, in photo dated 2017. (Photo: Ministério Público/Divulgação)

Suriname is the only country in South America without prison overcrowding, says study

 

[BigMan]

to me there one in the same and I been listening to stuff since it was considered "underground" , I actually consider Spanish trap a evolution of reggaeton

it is but for me reggaeton has to have the dem bow riddim

 

[Yehuda]

Afro-descendant managers are atypical cases in Uruguayan companies

by Victoria Mujica, February 14th 2018, 05:00

A quota law as in the public sector and raising awareness among the private sector are proposals that are being put on the table

The ministry analyzes the feasibility of generating a quota for Afro-descendants in the private sphere

It is not common in Uruguay to find black people in management and leadership roles, as in the case of Walter Rivero who occupies the position of Operations Manager at the Aloft Montevideo Hotel inaugurated last December in Punta Carretas.

Rivero's career has developed at the Starwoods company (owner of Sheraton and which was acquired by Marriott in 2015). He started as a security guard in Sheraton Montevideo in 2005, then he was "night auditor" in 2007 and office supervisor in 2009, as can be seen in his Linkedin profile. In 2014, he was part of the opening team of W World hotel in Bogota (Colombia) and in Punta de Mita (Mexico) and last July took a Operations Manager position in Aloft.

Consulted by Café & Negócios, Rivero declined to make statements for this report.

Rivero's case is clearly atypical for the Uruguayan reality. So much so that, when asked about it, neither Miguel Pereira, Official of the Ministerio de Desarollo Social (Mides — Ministry of Social Development) responsible for managing the law promoting quotas for Afro-descendants in the public sector, nor Eduardo Bottinelli, Director of Factum — which made the only report on Afro-descendant leadership in Uruguay — were able to name cases of managers with these characteristics in Uruguayan companies.

The report made in 2013 by Factum titled Mapa político y de liderazgo de la población afrodescendiente del Uruguay para el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (Political and leadership map of the Afro-descendant population of Uruguay for the United Nation Development Program) used a sample of the 6,787 people in high positions in public institutions, private companies and organizations.

"It's important to study and analyze why there are so few Afro-descendants in high positions". Eduardo Bottinelli, director of Factum

It showed that only 0.2% of these positions were occupied by black people in private companies, which is equivalent to saying that 13 Afro-descendants were general managers of medium and large companies, Uruguayan and subsidiaries of multinationals. It is not known in which sectors they worked in or who they were, since anonymous surveys were used for the report.

Bottinelli noted that the blacks who reached leadership roles managed to break down educational barriers. "They face discrimination to reach the high level, but there also social and economic inequalities from their background, to their social and cultural capital", he said.

For Pereira, who is a technician in the Human Rights Division of Mides, in the public sphere institutions it is easier to find cases of Afro-descendants in leadership roles because the law 19.122 of 2013 mandates that, in all state dependencies, 8% of job vacancies must be reserved for black people.

11.9% of the Afro-descendant population has no formal education, says the report presented by the MTSS.

In 2016, according to data from the Oficina Nacional del Servicio Civil (National Office of Civil Service), 275 people entered through this quota in compliance with the law in the State agencies and in the Legal Entities of Non-State Public Law. According to Pereira, this represents 1.78% of total admissions produced in the year.

Covert discrimination

There are also cases of Afro-descendants with tertiary and postgraduate studies, such as lawyers and accountants, who developed their careers abroad and when they returned to the country they found it difficult to get a job. In some cases, the response they got was that they were overvalued for the job, according to ex-deputy of Frente Amplio, Edgardo Ortuño. This situation is "a form of discrimination" that is covert, he added.

"Ultimately there is resistence to incorporate black people into the staff (of a company). There is a social imaginary that does not see this person in positions of leadership. Bets aren't made because this person isn't seen in this role, due to the historical racial divison of labor", he said.

The unemployment rate of the Afro-descendant population in 2016 was 10.8%; in 2010 it was 14%.

Ortuño, founder of Casa de la Cultura Afrouruguaya, was the first black deputy to take a seat in Parliament. Furthermore, he served as undersecretary of the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining during the government of José Mujica and said he knew of several cases like the one raised.

Not just one law

According to Pereira, one can think of using law 19.122 as a blueprint for, in the future, applying a similar regulation in the private sector. "What we need is articulation with the private sector and with the unions. In our strategic plan we have some elements to move forward in that sense", he said.

However, Ortuño understands that Uruguay is in a process that goes "from raising awareness to searching for equal opportunities", and before seeking to implement a quota law for Afro-descendants in the private sector, it is necessary to conduct an "awareness campaign at the media level". "Otherwise it would be a tool with traps that would not work, it would not cause a historical and significant change", he added.

The challenge for the private sector, says Pereira, is that affirmative action can be generated so that Afro-descendants can enter to work and build a career in the companies.

The gap between the black and non-black population living in poverty was reduced by 2% in 2016 compared to 2006.

"I hope that they can ascend, that there are more Afro-descendant managers because so far this still does not happen". He added that the concept should be that "with the same qualification, they can choose the option of hiring an Afro-descendant".

In commerce and domestic service

According to the report of Racio-Ethnic Ancestry and Labor Market of 2017 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, 10.3% of the Uruguayan population claims to have African ancestry (357,150 people).

The study indicates that in 2016, the majority of Afro-descendant employees work in commerce (18.1%), followed by the manufacturing industry (11,3%) and with a lower contribution and the same percentage are the real estate and professional activity branches; social and personal services; agriculture, forestry and fishing (8%).

The weight of Afro-descendant women in domestic service is the majority among the employees, with 10% of them carrying out this activity.

Afro-descendant managers are atypical cases in Uruguayan companies

 

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