So Venezuelan twitter has been debating racism in Vzla. I think that bc 1) racism in Vzla is & has always been less pernicious than in the US and 2) Vzla has “bigger problems”, it has been easy to avoid this issue. But that doesn’t make it go away. THREAD based on this book.

Whereas “segregation and violence were the most distinctive features of the virulent North American brand of racism,” Vzlan was a “café con leche” society where races peacefully mixed. But there was more to this than meets the eye...

Mixing with whites—the leche in the café—was seen as a way of “improving the race” in Vzla. So yes, white supremacy is very much part of our history. The following quote from Vzlan intellectual Rufino Blanco-Fombona in 1912 illustrates this attitude:

For the most part, Vzla did not have institutional racism like the US. One exception was in its immigration policy. Aside from encouraging mixing, the government wanted to attract European migrants to Vzla while excluding non whites, who they saw as inferior.

Yet Vzlans believed (and many continue to, I think) that whatever discrimination exists is socioeconomic—not racist. And it‘s true non whites could and did advance in society in ways not seen in other parts of the Americas. But we shouldn’t just pat ourselves on the back.

Chavismo presumably should‘ve addressed lingering racial inequality. But in the end it did not—quite the opposite. Non whites are disproportionally affected by the current crisis. Going fwd, maybe we should all acknowledge “Venezuelans only want a little café with their leche.”

(Shoutout to @CristalPalacios for posting about this book months ago and @GabrielJimenezM for letting me borrow it.)