Are Venezuelans racist or not racist? That’s the question. It’s a difficult question to answer because Venezuela has lived in recent decades clinging to the myth of being a mixed-race and multi-class society. My generation grew up with that myth, largely fueled by historical currents dating back to Independence and by the fantasy of infinite social mobility driven by oil. Like all myths, it is neither entirely false nor entirely true.
Last Saturday’s incident in Puerta del Sol, when, at a María Corina Machado rally, singer Carlos Baute echoed a crowd chanting “¡Fuera la mona!” (Get out, monkey!), in allusion to the acting president Delcy Rodríguez, brings the issue back to the table.
Judicious leadership could address the issue and open a national debate. Thus, perhaps, this controversy could become an opportunity to address historical complexes in Venezuela. An opportunity that should not be wasted.
Consciously or involuntarily, Baute expressed a sentiment – or, rather, a resentment – rooted in the Venezuelan racial and ethnic imaginary: dark skin as a marker of social, educational, and economic inferiority.
Venezuela is a deeply mixed country. European blood crossed with indigenous native and black African slaves – too many times by force – and produced the mixed-race and “pardo” society that the country is. As far as I know, there are no watertight compartments in the Venezuelan ethno-racial spectrum, except in Afro-descendant enclaves and minority and relatively isolated indigenous groups. In fact, Afro-descendants or Amerindians represent 8% and 4% of society, respectively.
However, mixing did not end the hierarchy. White Creoles are still seen as the top of the social pyramid, dominate economic elites, and are overrepresented in standards of beauty and success. Meanwhile, mestizos, morenos, zambos, and mulattos, who make up the popular “pardaje” and are the social base of the so-called people, carry, to a greater or lesser extent, the stigma of skin color. The rest are seen as folklore or exoticism, and are despised or subjected to plunder, as happens with indigenous communities in the mining areas of the south.
In Venezuela, the law establishes racial equality and there is no open discrimination or major racial conflicts like in other Latin American countries. However, structural racism emerges unfiltered in actions like Baute’s. Not only there, but in a myriad of commonplaces that express an enormous load of prejudices. In a humorous way, we celebrate that we must “improve the race” by mixing blacks with whites, but we also repeat the infamy of “black is black and his surname is shit.”
Most Venezuelans find it difficult to see this veiled and latent racism. We do not consider ourselves racist because, in comparative terms, perhaps we are not as much as some neighboring countries, where race equals destiny. But that racism is there. We live with it with relative indolence, without complicating our existence too much. But when it erupts, it does so with fury.
This substratum becomes more dangerous in the midst of a political war. The current confrontation for power between the opposition led by María Corina Machado and the Chavista leadership did not begin in Madrid. Hugo Chávez read very well the latent resentment in Venezuelan society, which he divided until the day of his death. He was a professional hater. He mercilessly exploited an anti-racist rhetoric to paint the white elite as the enemy and labeled them “los escuálidos” (the squalid ones) to emphasize their lack of strength.
Despite the caudillo’s triumphant discourse, the situation did not improve for the “morenos.” In reality, it worsened: state violence, through extermination raids in the so-called Operativos de Liberación del Pueblo (People’s Liberation Operations) during Maduro’s mandate, mainly attacked young mestizos from Caracas neighborhoods.
But the point is that this elite has also done itself no favors by repeating racist insults for years and despising the “others,” for being poor, ignorant, criminals, and dark. For being monkeys.
This ground is not neutral. Episodes like that of Puerta del Sol have an immediate political cost: they erode opposition leadership in popular sectors and, at the same time, feed the Chavista narrative with symbolic ammunition, which has made this antagonism one of its main sources of legitimacy.
María Corina intervened too late to correct Baute’s blunder and did so incompletely, without reproving the singer’s actions. Although she has nothing to do with that view, she is tainted by association. Baute’s half-hearted apology, as if saying “it was unintentional,” is also not enough.
In Caracas, Delcy Rodríguez’s spokespeople took note of an opportunity served on a silver platter to launch a campaign of repudiation that presents the president as a victim of racial resentment and the classism of the lifelong white elite. Of course, they spiced it up with a letter of apology from the Venezuelan embassy in Madrid for the hate speech in Puerta del Sol.
The incident may die down without major consequences. But the issue will not go away. On the contrary, it will become increasingly critical if Machado returns to the country and much more so if she comes to power. Giving it only an opportunistic political twist now or limiting oneself to damage control is a waste of time. Addressing the prejudices embedded in Venezuelan society responsibly and without demagoguery can help in the arduous work of reconciling the country.
María Corina Machado, who has also suffered resentment by being labeled “mantuana” to disqualify her before the majorities, should not hide the issue under the rug, but rather elevate the controversy to help overcome these stigmas.
From Chile to the United States, thousands of Venezuelans have experienced racism outside their country, as if it were an alien and imported experience. Perhaps that is why it is so difficult to recognize it within their own borders. Carlos Baute’s slip is not an anomaly. It is an uncomfortable mirror. Looking into it, without alibis or comforting myths, is necessary to include and integrate more marginalized or despised social and racial sectors. This is an indispensable condition for promoting a new democracy in Venezuela and a true reconciliation among Venezuelans.
