IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 2 ENGLISH | Page 42

Afro-Descendant Women:

class and gender in Cuba and the world

Poverty, Exclusion and
Racism

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Cecilia Rojas Moreno
Sociologist
Member, Regional Board, Network of Afro-Latin American,
Afro-Caribbean and Diasporic Women
National Coordinator, Network of Afro-Panamanian Women [REMAP]
Panamá

L

ast December, the U.N. General Assembly consensually adopted a resolution to
establish the celebration of the International Decade of People of African Descent from
January 1, 2015 to December 2024. The motto,
“Afro-Descendants: Acknowledgement, Justice
and Development, takes into account that all human beings are born free, with an equality of
rights and dignity.
The U.N. resolution formally acknowledges a
palpable reality: there are still millions of people
of African descent (dark skin, curly hair, prominent cheekbones, thick lips) enduring different
forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia and
intolerance inherited from a colonial past—in the
twenty-first century. This means we have to better
understand the reality in which these populations
live, and the processes and tendencies that are developing right now to bolster consciousness and
citizen participation, as a way to significantly influence public policy and the redistribution of our
countries’ wealth.

Poverty, exclusion and marginality
The reality that has characterized the Afro-descendant problem and, particularly, that of black
women in Latin America has been poverty, exclusion and marginality. We are still suffering the aftermath of the painful holocaust that slavery and
Trans-Atlantic traffic of male and female Africans was. Despite the fact that this is affecting a
population four times greater than the indigenous
one, their situation has remained invisible
throughout the region. We must acknowledge the
fact that this is due, in part, to the fact that the
Afro-descendant population, unlike the indigenous one, has been less organized regarding its
common interests and problems as an excluded
group. Generally, it has had little political power
and an inferior organizational capacity. Elsewhere, international forums and academic research have devoted much less time to the problems of Afro-descendant communities. There are