Carlos Moore, resident scholar at the Universidade do Estado da
Bahia, discussed race relations in Latin America on Monday,
presenting two different models of race relations to UCLA students
and members of the community.
Moore was invited to speak at UCLA because students need to be
aware of what is happening in countries outside the United States,
said Darnell Hunt, director of the Bunche Center for African
American Studies, which hosted the event.
“We need to be able to … study the important parallels
to what is going on in this country,” Hunt said.
“It’s easy to be myopic if you’re only focusing
on your own nation.”
Race relations in Latin America differ from those in the United
States because in Latin America, the racial structure of society is
based on an ancient model that traces its origin to the Arab world
and the Iberian Peninsula, Moore said.
Under the Latin American model, which Moore said is based on
close contact and co-existence between whites and blacks, blacks
and American Indians are oppressed through the denial of their
heritage.
“They said everybody here is Mestizo. Everybody is some
shade or another of white,” he said.
Moore said because the only people considered elite were whites,
blacks worked for years to obtain “white papers”
““ papers that stated a person was white.
“We grew up under circumstances in which census people
would come to your house and say, “˜Â¿Cuántos blancos
hay aquÃ?’ ““ “˜How many whites are there
here?'” said Moore, who spent part of his early life in
Cuba.
Unlike the system of race relations in the United States, the
system in Latin America dictates that “one drop of white
blood makes you white,” Moore said.
According to Moore, who has studied race relation models for 40
years, race relations in the United States are based on the idea of
segregation and reduced contact between peoples ““ the idea of
two distinct groups of blacks and whites.
Nations like Brazil and Cuba have been more
“successful” in maintaining a “white elite”
because blacks do not feel as powerless under the United
States’ system than under the Latin American one, Moore
said.
“If you say to someone that one drop of black blood makes
you black, you’re saying that black blood is tremendously
strong,” he said.
Moore said it is important to be aware of the two systems
because the Latin American system is an ancient system with an
insidious quality that could eventually lead to its incorporation
into U.S. society as well.
With globalization, increased awareness and knowledge of issues
regarding race relations is indispensable, Moore added.
“There’s no way we can continue being ignorant about
each other,” Moore said. “The more we know … the more
we can start planning a future together on this planet that is
getting smaller and smaller. The lies have to stop.”
Tamara Butler, a third-year art history student, said she heard
about the event over the radio and found the information regarding
the Latin American system of race relations of particular
interest.
“I think it’s real profound … how insidious it is,
how old it is,” Butler said. “The system we have here
is so different. The oppression here is very blatant.”