Xango Group, Afros fighting against racism

The Xango Group is an Afro-Colombian organization that fights against discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia, lesbophobia, and transphobia. To learn a little about its history and current struggles, Paola Oliveira interviewed one of its leading figures for CLACSO.tv. Marcela Lorenzo.

---

The Xango Group says in its blogspot:

In mythology, Xangô, an African god, is considered the judge among the Orishas. He governs the living energies of fire; therefore, his domain lies in lightning and thunder. Xangô is primarily recognized for his credibility; he decides between good and evil and punishes thieves, wrongdoers, and liars. Justice and righteousness are the virtues that most characterize this deity.

At the end of the 1990s, the Afro-descendant movement throughout the region, in its diversity and ideological plurality, began to draw lines of articulation that allowed us to advance in the organizational, representative and political processes, transforming us into actors and protagonists with voice and vote in different national, regional and international spheres.

Promoting and strengthening the urgent need for national and transnational coordination to address common global problems related to racism and racial discrimination achieved one of its main successes at the Pre-Conference of the Americas against Racism, held in Santiago, Chile, in 2000. However, the greatest achievement in this regard came at the Third World Conference against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. At this conference, Afro-descendant movements from around the world came together to fight for and reclaim our rights in terms of cultural and political identity.

For many, this Conference has been considered the greatest achievement of recent decades for Africans and their descendants. Many activists say, “…let’s enter that conference as Black people to establish our identity and leave as people of African descent.” It was a turning point in the political, cultural, and identity struggles of Afro communities, marking a new direction in the history of our peoples and the world.

Not forgetting that the Durban Action Plan and the recommendations made to the various States regarding the inclusion of the Afro-descendant population to promote their development also emerged there, this Plan continues to serve as a guide to frame the rights and issues related to Afro-descendants in the agenda of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean.

A decade has passed, along with several post-Durban conferences, yet sadly, the living conditions of millions upon millions of Afro-descendants across Latin America remain unchanged. We continue to face this racial capitalism, which has perpetuated ethnic and racial domination and economic oppression of Afro-descendants and Africans, and has also affected various sectors of the population who do not conform to the hegemonic, classist, Eurocentric, bourgeois, and white model we encounter in our daily lives.

But we haven't lost hope! Clearly, the Mercosur region, and Argentina within it, is taking significant steps toward a more inclusive, participatory, and integrative model for the country. It is undeniable that the advance of progressive governments, in clear empathy with their people, seeks to establish a model that recovers our identity, our history, and our values, with memory and justice based on those who shed their blood and gave their lives to freely build nations that represent and include us all.

People of African descent continue to contribute to building a more just society, based on equality and social equity. The fight against racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and sexism is part of the pursuit of equality, social justice, and historical redress for the first genocide that began with the slave trade.

In Argentina, a process of national transformation is taking shape, gradually impacting the Afro-Argentine community. After nearly two hundred years of historical and statistical invisibility, the national government is including the ethnic-racial variable, which will allow us to have a first official estimate of how many Afro-Argentines, Africans, and people of African descent live here and under what conditions.

This process of recognition, which was not easy at all, because institutional racism is very present in not only state bodies but also in the social spectrum, is beginning to bear fruit.

The national government has been developing and implementing a battery of tools, proposals, policies and strategies to achieve a more egalitarian Argentina framed within a transformation process that mainly has an impact on the daily life of each citizen, in the cultural, national, and popular fields.

We, the members of the Afro Xango group, see these processes as important, but we say there is still a long way to go. We need specific policies that will impact our community, creating a foundation for equal treatment and opportunities regardless of skin color. Because that is where the difference is framed and embodied; it is the color line, as Dubois said.

Because when people on the street say to you, "You fucking nigger, go back to your country," clearly expressing racist, discriminatory, and xenophobic sentiment, they don't ask if you're Afro-Argentine, from the diaspora, or African. The target of expulsion is the Black person, and what they bring with them, regardless of their nationality or origin.

For us, the fight against racism is cultural and political. We are committed to promoting actions, strategies, and our own discourse that responds to the local problems of our community while not losing sight of the national and global political context.

We have combined our activism and militancy with other vulnerable sectors of society, fighting against poverty and building bridges with our brothers and sisters from Indigenous communities and social and popular movements. We are learning from the progress made by the LGBTQ+ movement, which today celebrates the achievement of marriage equality. We have created a front against the Afro-right, which we see as a corrupted expression of our communities and an exercise in opportunism by various Afro-descendant individuals who use all kinds of strategies to sell their lie of representation and totalitarian legitimacy, undermining the work of organizations and activists and paralyzing the development of collective action, participation, and debate.

That is why our Afro XANGO group seeks social justice, inclusion and equality, contributing to the construction of a more just, egalitarian society, without racism or discrimination.”

---

---