IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 63

After the United States and Brazil, Colombia has the third largest Afrodescendant population in the hemisphere: 4.3 million of the total population, or 10.61%, are Afro-Colombian,
according to the 2005 census. Other estimates state they are 10.5 million
strong. Seventy-six percent of this Afro
population is concentrated on the Pacific
and Caribbean. This demographic justifies the significant progress that this
population has received since 1991.
What garnered the most media attention
this year took place in mid October.
Micolta, the emblematic soldier, was
taken off the air. It main actor would put
on blackface for Sábados Felices, a popular TV program on Caracol TV. The
Afro-Colombian community and some
NGOs had denounced the character as
racist, given he was playing a traditional,
black, ‘minstrel-style’ character. After
much intense debate, it was agreed that
the show would continue, but the actor
would paint himself in the colors of the
Colombian flag, and not as a black man.
After October 12th, Afro-Colombian
communities (established since 1993)
will be consulted regarding legal and
administrative initiatives involving the
longest, internal conflict in Colombian
history, which between 1958-2012 has
taken more than 200,000 lives, and displaced another 300,000 per year since
2000. President Juan Manuel Santos
announced a system of prior consultation
via his Twitter account. In November,
15,000 Afro-Colombians were given
title to 188,000 hectares of land in the
southwest, the result of a legal case that

goes back to 1999. National justice has
apologized for the slowness of its work
regarding denunciations of discrimination: of 188 presented by AfroColombians since 2013, only one case
has ended in a sentence. In September,
progress was made towards a bill for a
census to gather detailed information on
the Afro population in Colombia. In
Costa Rica, the Afro movement has
made important progress in recent years;
in 2014, the country declared itself a
multi-ethnic State with about 350,000
Afros (8% of the total population). By
2015, two new affirmative actions
measures went into effect. In January,
Afro-Costa Rican activist Quince Duncan was appointed Commission of AfroDescendant Affairs for the President of
the Republic. As a representative of the
group, Duncan carries out prolific and
intense work in the State’s dynamics. By
the end of October, he presented the National Plan for Acknowledgment, Justice
and Development for Afro-Descendant
Men and Women (2015-2018). It primary objective is to ameliorate the group’s
economic problems, and prevent or intervene in racial discrimination cases.
The Nicaraguan State had to censor the
classic children’s book Cocorí due to its
racist content. It reproduced stereotypes
and caused great consternation in its
comparison of an Afro child with a
monkey. A request was made to stop the
book’s production and sales, and musical
representations of the work. This initiative, by two Afro-Costa Rican congressional delegates, brought about racist
threats. Yet, at the very least it served to

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