Afro-Colombians Demand to be Heard

Afro-Colombian march down Ave. Septima.

'We support the strike in the El Chocó' region.

 Afro-Colombians, often said to be forgotten Colombians, are demanding attention and resources from the national government. Recently, Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast region have held protests and work stoppages demanding government investment in infrastructure and that the government fulfill commitments made in previous agreements.

The Pacific coast, distant from Colombia's major cities, is an impoverished region wracked by violence from guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narcotrafficking groups which fight over valuable drug trafficking routes and illegal mines. This weekend, riots and looting took place in the port city of Buenaventura.

Such hair!

Afro heroes.

'The Afro-Colombian people demand that the government fulfill its promises.'

'We demand the law of equal opportunities and no racial discrimination.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Picturing Discrimination

Only young white females need apply. (Photo: El Espectador)

Wanted to hire: 'Female medical surgeon with diploma....
                           From 25 to 35 years of age, white skin.
                           Personal interview with Dr. Guarin, July 22 at 10 a.m.'

This shamelessly racist classified ad was published recently in a newspaper in Cali, a mostly Afro city. Dr. Guarin has deservedly received lots of criticism for his overt racism. The clinic where he rented his office disowned him, and I suspect he'll be facing lawsuits.

Would you hire these people? Resumés with
photos make it easy to select applicants by race,
age and appearance.

But Dr. Guarin is not only a bigot, but also stupid. After all, Colombian employment practices make employment discrimination of every kind perfectly easy - and covert.

Why didn't Dr. Guarin just call for all applicants to send him their resumés - and then toss into the trash all those whose photos showed they didn't have 'white skin'? (I'm not saying he should have done such an ugly thing, which would also have been stupid, since he'd be reducing his own pool of applicants.)

The Colombian practice of including photos on CVs has always seemed to me not only pointless, but also an open door to discrimination of every kind: by age, sex, ethnicity and attractiveness.

Not long ago, researchers at Los Andes University in Bogotá sent out a bunch of resumé's with identical qualifications and experience, but accompanied by photos of applicants of different races. Surprise, surprise: those resumés with photos of black applicants received fewer calls for interviews.

The contrast with the United States, which seems obsessed with stamping out discrimination, couldn't be greater. There, if you were a member of your high school's black/Jewish/gay/Christian etc Student Union you're supposed to leave it off just in case it might give you an unfair advantage or disadvantage with the employer. Require applicants to include their photos, and every civil rights organization, as well as the federal government, would have you in court in no time.

It's a measure of what a hot-button race is that the public uproar was all about skin tone. After all, in his tiny ad, Dr. Guarin also discriminated by gender (he specified that the surgeon be female) and by age. Such discrimination is routine in Colombian businesses, and taken for granted. Is it illegal?

I have no idea about Dr. Guarin's medical abilities. But, judging by this ad, he's a lousy businessman. After all, by restricting applicants by age, gender and race, he's excluding most potential applicants, likely eliminating his best potential employee.

It all makes one wonder whether Dr. Guarin's motives for hiring only a young woman were something other than professional.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Visit to Miami in Bogotá

'White Only,' in Teusaquillo.

While bicycling thru the quiet Teusaquillo neighborhood the other day, I was struck by this sign on a house near La Esmeralda Park.

A 'White Only' house somewhere in the U.S.

Had the Ku Klux Klan set up a Colombian subsidiary, I wondered? I knocked on the door.

It turned out that the sign and U.S. flag were part of a photo exhibit inside. I found the exhibit (or what remained of it), consisting mostly of pictures of sterotypical suburban U.S. houses, less than impressive. But the house itself, which is an arts collective named 'Miami', is interesting.

Some five artists, as well as a sociological studies firm, rent workshops in the house.

But I found no answer to my big question: Why did the colectivo name itself Miami?

As far as the photo exhibit, by Juan Obando and Guillermo Vanegas, its accompanying information sheet made clear it is a critique of racial prejudice in Colombia. That's a fine sentiment, but not particularly original or interesting, unfortunately.

I was left wondering why this exhibit has a title in English and is about the U.S. Compared to these anemic photos about a whitewashed U.S., an examination of ethnic relations in Colombia would be much more interesting - particularly to Colombians.

Or, how about examining society's obsession with whiteness, which may or may not be tied into racism. Snow white sugar, toilet paper, facial tissues, rice and wheat flour all have big health and-or environmental costs, but represent health and cleanliness.

Or is this yet another example of the-U.S.-as-the-convenient-all-purpose-punching-bag for problems which exist just about everywhere?

I thot that some of the other, random works on the wall, containing sharp social commentaries, were more interesting:

A photo of a paramilitary type beside an altered sign offering cellphone 'minutos.' The paramilitaries bought the votes of many members of Congress, as well as intimidating residents of areas they controlled into voting for paramilitary-backed candidates. 

The work on the left says 'Cheap food for shit people,' and below that 'You either learn to kill or go extinct.'

A workshop in the Colectivo Miami.

The face of the United States.

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe is looking younger, and more indoctrinated, than ever.

The Colectivo Miami is located Carrera 17 No. 36-61, in Teusaquillo. Tel: 812-0295
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Tipping Bolívar's Pedestal

Too tall a pedestal for Bolívar?

Few things are more annoying - or more deceptive - than turning heroes of history into gods. And few people have been carried closer to godliness than the Liberator Simon Bolivar.

Bolívar was unquestionably a great hero. He led the revolution which freed much of South America

Do they deserve to be heroes?

from oppresive Spanish rule, replacing tyrrany with nascent democracy and leading to the end of slavery.

But Bolívar was also a man with imperfections and contradictions, which have been generally sanitized from history (Bolívar's womanizing is an exception, but that's also admired in Latin culture).

In a corner of the Museo Nacional, which is full of Bolívar busts, portraits and quotes, there's a small exhibition calling into question the prefection of the Great Man.

Naval hero José Prudencio Padilla
was executed by Bolívar's supporters.

The episode involves another revolutionary hero, José Prudencio Padilla, who fought and won several naval battles critical to the revolution. Padilla also happened to be a man of mixed-race, which has complicated the story of his relationship to Bolívar.

According to what seems to be history's official version, Padilla opposed Bolívar and apparently betrayed him and even participated in a conspiracy to assassinate El Libertador.

But today Padilla's opposition to Bolívar looks like a principled stand against a man who wanted to make himself into president for life. In that, Padilla was allied with fellow revolutionary hero and Colombian president Francisco de Paula Santander, who famously told Colombians that 'The law will give you freedom.' While Bolívar advocated a centralized government with a strong president - himself - Padilla and Santander supported a system with a strong Congress and powers vested in the provinces.

Mariano Montilla supported Bolívar against
the 'threat' of race mixing.  He sent
Padilla to prison for 'fomenting
racial hatred.'

And Padilla may have been framed because of Bolívar's apparent fear of race-mixing and the influence of people of color. According to the Museo Nacional's exhibition "Bolívar and other generals feared that people of African descent would seize power and eliminate the dominant class."

In 1828, shortly after Bolívar escaped an asassination attempt, Padilla was arrested and executed by Bolívar's forces.

Bolívar apparently recognized his error and repented for his treatment of Padilla, writing in a letter that same year "...what most torments me is the just clamor by with which...Padilla's people will complain. They will say with great justice that I have not been weak but in favor of that infamous white man..."

By then, of course, it was too late.

I wonder what Venezuela's mixed-race Pres. Hugo Chávez, who worhsipped Bolívar, thot about this. Rather, I bet, he conveniently ignored it.

Racism isn't the only one of Bolívar's flaws which has been generally forgotten. He also ordered acts which we'd consider severe war crimes, but back then were likely accepted as a normal part of war.

Letter by Bolívar: 'I have not been weak,
but in favor of that infamous white man...'

North America's heroes were also, of course, deeply flawed men. Many owned and traded slaves while writing soaring rhetoric about the equality and freedom of mankind. They directed the displacement and near genocide of Native Americans.

All these were men of their time and it's not fair to evaluate them by today's standards. But neither do their deserve sanctification.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Battle of the Urban Tribes

Skinheads walk thru Teusaquillo. Notice that the guy in the foreground is dark-skinned. 

Skinheads group up near the Santa Ana church. 

One of these guys wore a 'Good night white pride' t-shirt. 

While pedaling thru the ordinarily quiet and stately Teusaquillo neighborhood during today's May Day bike tour we encountered these groups of youths with cropped hair and dark jackets stampeding thru the streets. What were they doing?

They were gangs of skinheads, a weird and disturbing phenomenon in Colombia, facing off against each other. 

The skinheads take off in pursuit after the enemy band. 

The youths charged thru the streets, meeled about in the neighborhood's small park and then took off north again, yelling and swinging sticks at each other. They reminded me of packs of dogs, insects or some other supposedly 'lower' sort of animal which fights unthinkingly in packs.

The cops show up, but just a few of them. 

Bystanders and police whom I approached shrugged off the commomotion. These were only 'urban tribes,' they said. In fact, they were gangs of ideologically opposed skinheads: communists vs. anti-communists, some of them probably on their way home from the Primero de Mayo demonstration. 

The skinheads run thru the small nearby park.
In the confusion, I wasn't sure how many
groups, or 'Urban Tribes,' were here. 

This park has a small police station,
but the cops understandably felt outnumbered. 

I suspect, however, that these kids have little real ideology, but are instead acting out primordial instincts to join a group, adopt a label and lash out against those who are different. Rather than 'communist' vs. 'anti-communist', they might just as well have been fans of rival football teams, whom I have also seen fighting in public. 

Even so, I was comforted to see one of the skinheads wearing a t-shirt with the anti-racist song title 'Good Night White Pride,' altho that song, ironically, contains the lines 

One group chased their rivals out of the park and to the north. 

'You pick on the weak...You`re only strong in groups...Can`t do shit on your own'; sentiments which, I suspect, could apply equally well to either side in this fight. 

Caught one! Cops catch a member of one of the gangs. 

Fortunately, like two packs of dogs, these guys concentrated on each other and ignored the rest of us.

After waiting for reinforcements, the police arrived and herded the skinheads away. I don't know how it all ended. 

You're caught, dude. But he's the only one. 

Fortunately, too, these violent extremists are only a tiny group in Colombia, where most people are probably of mixed ethnic heritage. 

Neighbors watch from their windows. 

After the gangs had run off, these kids showed up and sang this anti-violence rap song. Nice. These same kids performed for us a few days ago in the Central Cemetery.




By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Class Differences in Black and White

Four generations of a family and their servants. Can you tell who is who?

A Spanish magazine's photograph has exposed Colombia's racial tensions.

It's no secret that Colombia is dominated by a small, light-skinned elite. But a recent photo in the Spanish magazine Hola starkly emphasized Colombia's racial relationships - at least among the elite of the city of Cali.

Why the photographer chose to pose his or her subjects in such a stereotyped way - and why the family agreed to a photo that verges on satire - is beyond me. The four wealthy, white women relax on fashionable furniture while behind them two Afro-Colombian servant women stand posed with platters, resembling some sort of serving machines or decorative items, their white uniforms emphasizing their dark skins.

The eight-page article in Hola, which loves fashion, wealth and celebrity, was about 'The most powerful women of the Valle de Cauca, Colombia,' and  'their formidable mansion in the Beverly Hills of Cali.' The Afro-Colombian servant women evidently were part of that home's furnishings.

Sure, this is in Cali, a conservative, overgrown farm town where decades-old social traditions evidently persist. But there's a truth here about Colombia, whose population is about 15% Afro, with substantial proportions of indigenous and mestizo people, but has been ruled almost exclusively by people of European origin. Not only that, but just a few families, such as the Santos and Michelsens, have dominated business and government.

Impoverished children in Santa Marta
(Photo: Gov't of Santa Marta)

Afro-Colombians suffer a poverty rate of about 60% percent, compared to less than 50% for the country in general. They have also suffered disproportionately from displacement caused by Colombia's armed conflict. El Choco, a province near Cali whose population is heavily Afro and indigenous, has come to symbolize poverty.

The situation persists because of many factors which perpetuate social privileges, such as elite schools and social clubs in which friends and relatives help each other climb the social ladder. Social and ethnic prejudices also certainly persist.

Yet, Colombia's social stratification seem less stark than what I saw in La Paz, Bolivia, where I lived for several years. There, every middle class family had to have an indigenous girl servant, an empleada domestica, who was brought in from the countryside in a relationship resembling slavery. The girls often did not speak Spanish, were sometimes held in quasi-captivity, suffered sexual abuses and often were cheated out of their wages.

They also suffered from deep social prejudices in a nation in which the tiny, light-skinned urban middle class and the landowning class were overwhelmingly white or mestizo, and the rural poor were indigenous and often spoke only Quechua or Aymara. In one house where I rented a room, the family employed such a teenage servant girl. The family sent their own children to private schools, but the servant girl did not study. When I asked my landlady about the girl's future, she just shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, she'll be a street vendor or something," the woman told me.

One evening in La Paz I met with a young Bolivian journalist in the lobby of one of the city's few expensive hotels. La Paz is located at almost 4,000 meters above sea level and evenings there are always chilly and often rainy. The Bolivian journalist and I talked for a good while about something or other, and then left the hotel - where we met my acquaintance's servant woman waiting outside the door. The two women had taken for granted, whether correctly or not, that the hotel would not allow an indigenous woman to enter. 


Another time, I visited the home of a friend who taught in a university and was therefore presumably more open-minded than average. While I ate lunch at the kitchen table with my friend's family, their servant ate out of a pot beside the stove. I commented about this.

The servant "prefers it this way," my friend assured me.


Perhaps she did, but that's because Bolivia had created such huge cultural and educational barriers between its classes that a servant woman felt uncomfortable mixing socially with her employers. Now that Bolivia has its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, perhaps that's changed - but I doubt it.

But back to the Hola polemic. The Italian-Spanish photographer Andrea Savini insisted that the photo contained nothing discriminatory.

"Hola does not deal with controversial subjects," he said.

Rather, it appears, Hola ignores stereotypes while also perpetuating them.


As a result of the photo, the wealthy women pictured have reportedly received death threats.


One of them, Rosa Haluf de Castro, defended the photo on W Radio. "There's nothing wrong with serving coffee," she said. "Here in the valley we do things right."


But Haluf de Castro's daughter, Sonia Zarzur, apologized tearfully for "a moment of vanity."


Nowhere have I seen the servant women interviewed. Domestic decorations, perhaps, cannot talk.

Bogotá has a small black middle class,
making stereotypes inaccurate.

Many observers have been unforgiving with 'Cali's most powerful women.' The government's representative for the development of people of African descent called the contrast between the white and the black women pictured 'perverse,' and pointed out that the government just passed a law prohibiting discrimination.

A commentator on W Radio's website called the photo "a typical contrast about how Colombian aristrocrats claim to provide work opportunities to the less-favored people (as in colonial days). But these (employees) are slaves to these jobs, because of the lack of opportunities created by people who shut themselves in their archaic fortunes."


In fact, Sonia Zarzur said that the family started off modestly and does lots of philanthropy, which may very well be true. Nevertheless, an Afro-Colombian leader has said that he will file a lawsuit - I'm not sure against whom - based on the new anti-discrimination law.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours