Coming to Grips With Negrophobia: ...Negrophobia — or the contempt of blackness — has a long and ugly legacy in Latin American and Caribbean countries, where 90 percent of the approximately 10 million enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were taken. Only 4.6 percent were brought to the U.S.
Although Latin American peoples are generally of mixed heritage, experts say the historical emphasis on mestizaje — or the doctrine of miscegenation — obscures a divisive system that prefers Whiteness to Blackness. In practice, not all parts of the mixture are equally appreciated, and some are scorned, says Tanya Hernandez, a law professor at the Fordham University School of Law.
“I think what is traditionally viewed as distinctive in Latin America is this notion of fluid racial identity that people can identify how they want. But the way people are encouraged to identify is away from Blackness,” says Hernandez, who is writing a book on the subject. “The hierarchy is left unchallenged because everyone is busy denying it.”
