Black Lives Matter Movement: What does it look like in Colombia?

Over the past months we have seen multiple cases of police brutality in the USA against African American citizens. On June 1st, a young man from Cauca, Colombia was also brutally killed by police for not “obeying” the quarantine lock down. We cannot do life as normal. We need to pause and reflect on what life wants to tell us today. At Zuahaza, we wanted to write an article that sheds light on the Black Lives Matter movement globally. We cannot not respond to this awakening of racial injustice, no matter if we are American citizens or not. We believe racial injustice is present in every country and want to share from our Colombian perspective what this means for Colombians to respond to this global justice movement. As a social enterprise, our mission is to advocate for equality and justice. Today, that means speaking out about racism in our country and what we can do to walk in a different direction towards equality.

wHAT DOES RACISM LOOK LIKE IN Colombia?

I (Tatiana) will write this based on my own experience as a Colombian woman.

“What race are you?”, they asked me when registering for my social security number in the Unites States during my college years. Options: “White, Black, Hispanic, Asian or Other…” I know what white, black and asian are, but hispanic? Hispanic is not a race. According to the dictionary, the word Hispanic means “Relating to Spain or to Spanish-speaking countries, especially those of Central and South America.” There is nothing here that tells you about the color of someone’s skin. But, because I am a brown-skinned woman, that is what the lady at the counter suggested me to write when I told her I was not sure about what category I feel I belong to. Would my sister, who is lighter-skinned tone, be considered white? or hispanic? I talked to my white Mexican friend and said she would be categorized as “Other” because she neither “looked” like a typical brown-skin hispanic but she is definitely not a caucasian woman.

I am telling this personal story because I think this was the first time I truly started to ask myself about race; what is my race, and what racism looks in my own context. Growing up in Colombia you notice people have different skin tones. Some are more light-skinned, others like me, culturally called “morenos”, are brown-skinned. There are also Afro Colombians who are dark-skinned. Culturally you grow up admiring “blonde” beauty, because it’s rare in Colombia and more “European” looking. I unconsciously grew to think about myself as less because I felt less pretty than blonde girls. I did not grew up around minorities (such as Afro or indigenous Colombians) in my neighborhood or school, and this definitely isolated me from the racist and classist reality of our country. When you get to travel to other regions like the Caribbean or Pacific coast, then you see a very different Colombia, an African-influenced Colombia.

For many years I thought that because we did not talk about race, or ask people about their race, that there was no racism in my country. Oh, I was so wrong! In our country we have racism and classism all in one. Colombia and other Latin American countries have the highest economic inequality index in the world. This means our wealth gap is absurd. You have millionaires and communities struggling with malnutrition all in the same nation. These extremely different realities coexist in one territory and sadly, like in many other countries of our world, our black and indigenous communities are the most affected. We grew to accept this. To accept as normal that the Choco department in Colombia was one of the poorest in our country, and where 85% of the population is black. During the 90s and early 2000s, thousands of internal migrants from different departments of Colombia started to flood the city of Bogota. Many Afro Colombians ended up homeless in the streets. Sadly, this furthered the stereotype that Afro Colombians are poor, uneducated and potentially “dangerous”. It wasn’t until living in the United States that I was exposed to a different racism that made me think about my own privilege. This caused me to question the ways Colombians just accept the cruel reality of our Afro Colombian brothers and sisters.

There is not an easy way to describe racism in Colombia, but is not just a matter of skin color, it is also a matter of wealth distribution. The poorest regions of our country are either majority black or majority indigenous. In parallel these happen to be regions that are most affected by guerrilla conflicts. With this long history of conflict fueled by the drug trade (which is another article for another time), we have become a separated people. We made fences. We hired security guards. We built walls around our neighborhoods, and in all this, we prolonged the separation and discrimination against our fellow black and indigenous Colombians.

So, what do we do now?

The important question, and the complicated answer: We don’t know. We have ignored the issue for so long we have gotten used to doing life as usual and in reality we don’t want to get messy. We have a messy history where pain, violence and distrust fill the air of our country. What can we collectively choose to do? In response to the black lives matter movement that was rekindled last week in the United States triggered by the death of George’s Floyd’s death, I cannot but think about our beloved Colombia, diverse and beautiful, still hurt and in pain from years of violence and oppression.

Firstly, let’s get educated. I am amazed at how little we Colombians know about our Afro Colombian communities. Schools definitely did not teach us enough, but we cannot blame it on others. Individually, we need to change, hoping that our children will experience and value the diversity of their country and elevate those stories that have not been shared. So, I am sharing a couple Afro Colombian stories and resources to inspire my millennial generation about Afro Colombians and how actually the Colombia we enjoy today is the result of our Afro Colombian influence. We should start giving them credit for it.

Secondly, let’s not just acknowledge the Afro influence in our culture but support it. There is so much power in supporting artists, businesses, and accomplished works in every industry. We often grow lazy and choose the same places to go to or to buy clothes from just because it is comfortable. It is not that hard to stop and do a little bit of research and support Afro Colombian owned businesses, organizations, restaurants, artists etc. There has been a rise of Colombian owned businesses and I am SO happy this has been a wave of influence for millennials when deciding where and whom to purchase from. But let’s also take it a step further. We all know the majority of these businesses are owned by privileged Colombians (me included). It is so hard for you to be a minority and own a business. Let’s make sure we do our job in using our Colombian owned platforms and start using them to advocate for equality within our own country.

Image from El Universal

afro colombian history

San Basilio de Palenque

When I read about this place I was so mad I did not learn about it growing up because it has one of the most inspiring stories! This town, located in the Bolivar department of Northern Colombia is known as the first “free slave” town in the Americas. This place was literally started by slaves back in the 1600s who escaped from the city of Cartagena to live freely. San Basilio de Palenque earned it’s own independence almost 200 years before Colombia’s independence from Spain. The Spanish crown issued a royal decree in 1713, freeing all citizens of the town from slavery. It was truly a haven for slave communities across Colombia to flee to. The “palenque” people, as they are now called, advocated to keep their African ways of life through their food, music and culture. This is why, in 2005 the UNESCO declared this town a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” because to this day their cultural heritage remains intact. It is something that is sadly a rarity for many other Colombian regions.

You can read a brief history of this incredible community HERE, and learn more about the important heritage of their food and music HERE. (only in Spanish)

The Untold Afro Colombian History

Join Juan de Dios Mosquera in a lesson across years of slavery in Colombia and what that means today for the Afro Colombian community in the socio-political and economic landscape. Juan, is an educator on Afro Colombian history and an advocate for equal rights and social justice in Colombia against racism. He has also pioneered some of the most important organizations against racism and oppression in the country. (All videos are in Spanish)

The first video is a short sweet introduction to Afro Colombian history. It can help us understand why our black population lives in the conditions they do, why are they geographically located where they are and the realities of the extreme poverty conditions the majority of them currently live in.

Let’s talk about discriminatory language

This second video is a longer interview with a popular tv channel where Juan dismantles discriminatory language and ignorant assumptions that the majority of non Afro Colombians still struggle with to this day.

AFRO COLOMBIAN MUSICIANS & Artists

One of the clearest influences of Afro Colombian culture is in the arts and music. Many of today’s famous Latin American beats have their roots in Afro Colombian traditions. The “cumbia” and “champeta” rythms originally come from the “palenqueros” that lived in San Basilio de Palenque. Here are two of my personal favorite Afro Colombian artists for different reasons. The first one is a musical group who have used music from their roots as a platform to speak about their heritage and use music and dance as a way to invest in the younger population of their communities to educate them about their ancestry. The second one is an artist who defies the status quo of music and of race.

ChoQuibTown

Image from El Espectador

This incredible group of 3 artists started back in 2000 in the city of Cali to compose their songs. They had grown up together and music was part of their cultural identity. As the group started to think about their music more professionally, their passion for their ancestry helped them reach the souls of millions of Colombians as well as Latin American homes beyond Colombia.

Choquibtown makes music as a reflection of who they are, how they grew up and where they want to go. They are all from the Chocó region of Colombia. They compose music based on their Chocó rhythms. They combine local rhythms with popular genres like hip hip and urban music to create something truly original.

Betty Garcés

Born in Buenaventura, Colombia Betty Garcés fought against all odds to master the classical musical genre; a genre generally dominated by white professionals. After graduating from school in Cali, she had the opportunity to study in Germany. She graduated with honors from a masters in arts from the Cologne University of Music. She is an opera icon worldwide.

AFRO COLOMBIAN fASHION BRANDS

Image from Miss Balanta

Miss Balanta

Turbans from Miss Balanta is a fashion accessory brand owned by Angélica Balanta. She is an Afro Colombian designer and founder. As she grew up, Angélica was influenced by her mother’s fashion and the incorporation of the turban into the everyday outfit. This cultural heritage became her main inspiration to create a modern Afro Colombian turban brand.

She is an advocate for rescuing important elements of the Afro Colombian culture in our nation. Her brand re-uses scraps of fabric and turns them into art pieces for the contemporary Afro Colombian woman. Her mission is to create fashion statement pieces that will rescue and highlight her culture and empower other Afro Colombian women to also do the same.

You can visit her website and see her line of turbans HERE

Image from Básico Pero Nítido

Básico pero Nítido

This t-shirt fashion brand is a clear example of designers using powerful language to re-educate our non- Afro Colombians about their culture and desire to use new language to describe Afro Colombians. Founded by Sham Selassie, Afro Colombian born in Buenaventura, Básico pero Nítido is one of the few fashion brands owned by a “buenaverense”.

The messages from their t-shirts are powerful statements for anti-racist behavior in our country. “Power to the people”, “Black power” or “No, you cannot touch my hair”. Other shirts are less direct but have images from important global and Colombian black historical figures. Their idea behind these messages is to educate non-Afro Colombian and Afro Colombians the same about the importance of black history in our country. Sham states, “ The idea is that Afro Colombian people start recognizing their own icons from our black history. Like Marcus Garvey said ‘ A people without knowledge is like a tree without roots’”

You can read the full interview from the alternative news site Cartel Urbano with founder Sham Selassie HERE

Image from Dinero Magazine

Lia Samatha

Lia Samantha is an Afro Colombian fashion designer and singer born in the city of Bogotá. Her family is originally from the Chocó region and moved to the capital city before she was born. Lia has showcased her designs in the Bogota Fashion Week, has spoken in TED Talks Bogotá on the importance of the African heritage in Colombia, showcased her designs in the New York Fashion week and has collaborated with global brands like Nike.

Lia is definitely one of the most famous Afro Colombian designers and for good reason. She draws inspiration from African and indigenous cultural heritage of Colombia to design her clothes. She is an advocate to preserve craft traditions and uses the symbolic African printed fabrics to bring awareness to her heritage.

She is mostly known for designing bold accents because of what color means to her. She says “There is nothing elegant about hiding yourself under a black mantel - for indigenous and African tribes a true sense of elegance is found in the wearing of colors, showing your own colours and seducing those around you with colours, just like the natural world around us. To me, there is nothing more elegant than the male peacock showing off his tail feathers of color in all his glory. Nothing more, elegant that a flower blossoming in the morning sun, presenting the full array of its colored beauty. In short, I am trying to change the fixed concept we have of fashion now, which has been the same for a long time."

Personally, her story inspires me in multiple levels. She is a woman that has decided to use not only her cultural heritage but the craft traditions of her parents to write a different story. She desires to educate through her fabric choices, to elevate what it means to be Afro Colombian, and to preserve her culture through a powerful language: fashion.

In the next video, you can get a sense of her brand aesthetic, her strength in fabric and color choices. She is now a famous Colombian fashion designer and is using her voice and influence to motivate others to tell a different story of Colombia; the Afro Colombian story.

You can read a full biography and interview with Lia Samantha HERE with British Fashion United Magazine (in english), and HERE for an interview with Kienyke in (spanish).