CARIBBEAN WORLD

The Indian Heritage of Tanya S. Chutkan, U.S. District Judge Assigned to Trump’s Jan. 6 Trial August 25, 2023 She was born in Kingston, Jamaica to Indo-Jamaican father and Afro-Jamaican mother. Despite her qualifications and experience, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has faced virulent criticism because of the color of her skin. “For a lot of people, I seem to check a lot of boxes: immigrant, woman, Black, Asian. Your qualifications are always going to be subject to criticism and you have to develop a thick skin,” she wrote in an article published on the United States Courts website in February in recognition of African American History Month. She was nominated in December 2013 by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was confirmed by the Senate in a 95-0 vote. Chutkan was born and raised in Jamaica to an Indo-Jamaican father and an Afro-Jamaican mother. Indo-Jamaicans are the descendants of people who came from the Indian ...

International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women, July 25th Latin America is home to 130 million African Americans, of which 51% are women. Afro-descendant people generally face racial discrimination and marginalization resulting from historical events, such as slavery and colonialism, but Afro-descendant women face double discrimination because of their gender. Therefore, they are more likely to suffer objectification and sexualization, as well as physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. In addition, they have less access to quality education, employment, housing, and healthcare. On July 25th, 1992, 300 Afro-descendant women from 32 Latin American and Caribbean countries met in the Dominican Republic. They reviewed their struggles and challenges, formed partnerships to overcome racism from a gender perspective, and defined advocacy strategies for visibility and recognition of the contributions of Afro-descendant women to culture and society. They fou...

Um retrato de política e resistência negra no Brasil Leia a introdução à última edição do NACLA Report. June 17, 2022 Luciana Brito Sendo o Brasil um país de maioria composta por pessoas negras, 56 por cento da população total, esta é a maior população negra das Américas. Assim, toda e qualquer questão sobre política, economia, sociedade e cultura no Brasil tem a questão racial, melhor, a questão das desigualdades raciais como elemento central da análise. Durante muito tempo, na academia e no senso comum, convencionou-se afirmar que o problema do Brasil seria o problema das desigualdades de classe. Esta perspectiva era compartilhada tanto pela direita, quanto pelo própria esquerda brasileira que se recusava a enfrentar e reconhecer o problema racial brasileiro. O mito da democracia racial, da harmonia entre as raças e a ideia de que a mistura racial eram principais indicativos da ausência de hostilidades raciais eram exemplos frequentemente utilizados para defender essa ideia. Co...

There are 62 Black members of the current Congress, the most ever. The current meeting of Congress is one of the most racially diverse in history. About 11% of congressional members identify as Black. A quarter of members from the 118th Congress identify as something other than non-Hispanic white, according to the most recent data from the Congressional Research Service. Congress is a ways away from 1870, when Rep. Hiram Rhodes Revel of Mississippi was elected to serve as the first Black person in Congress. Revels filled an empty Senate seat and only served a year. It was decades until Black representation really started to grow. Here’s the current state of Black Americans in Congress and what it took to get there. A record 62 Black Congressmembers (11.5% of total membership) are serving in the 118th Congress — three more than the 117th Congress. Fifty-nine of those members serve in the House and three serve in the Senate. Twenty-seven House members including two Delegates (p...

Become a Minority in America? Other majority-minority societies offer positive examples—and cautionary tales. By Justin Gest, a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. An applicant holds a U.S. flag and a packet while waiting to take the oath to become a U.S. citizen at a naturalization ceremony in Salt Lake City on April 10, 2019. March 22, 2022, 5:31 PM In 2021, the U.S. population expanded at its slowest rate in history, and for the first time, the majority of its population growth came from immigration. So, despite four years of former President Donald Trump’s policies limiting the admission of foreigners, the United States is on track to reach its anticipated 2044 “majority minority” milestone: the moment when the majority ethnic group, non-Hispanic white people, becomes one of multiple minorities. This article is adapted from Majority Minority by Justin Gest (Oxford University Press, 424 pp., $29.95, March 2022). For centuries, countr...

Contre l’assignation identitaire qui gagne Publié le 10 mars 2021 Les questions identitaires sont au centre du débat politique depuis de nombreuses années déjà. Elles avaient jusque dans les années 2000 une dimension émancipatrice par rapport à l’appartenance à des minorités mal reconnues. Il s’agissait de trouver sa place dans une société française ouverte sur l’extérieur. Les questions identitaires avaient également une dimension politique très forte face à la montée de l’extrême droite qui en faisait un sujet politique contre l’immigration. Puis les revendications identitaires se sont développées également sur d’autres terrain : les questions de genre et la montée en puissance des revendications liées aux libertés sexuelles, à la procréation médicalement assistée ; les questions religieuses et notamment le port du voile dans l’espace public. Elles ont également investi le champ de la mémoire avec les débats sur le colonialisme, le « racialisme », l’esclavage, la repentance et pl...