Declaration for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
On March 21, 1960, more than 20.000 Black people marched peacefully against the Pass Act in Sharpeville, Johannesburg, South Africa. Although it was a predominantly Black neighborhood, apartheid forced Black residents to carry a booklet containing information about where they were allowed to move about. In a violent, inhumane, and racist manner, the South African police confronted the demonstrators with bursts of machine-gun fire. As a result, nearly 70 Black people were killed and around 180 were wounded.
As a result of what happened and so that the date would not be forgotten, in 1969 the UN declared March 21 as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Sixty-one years after that massacre, despite all the progress made in equality policies, we continue to witness Black populations worldwide remaining victims of structural and systemic racism, which condemns hundreds of millions of people of African descent to poverty, exclusion, marginalization, and denial of human rights. Statistics show that Black, Afro-descendant, and African people continue to be disproportionately affected by police violence, lack of access to material goods and services such as healthcare, education, and formal employment, and also the deprivation of access to symbolic resources.
The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically exacerbated this situation and highlighted its disproportionate impact on Afro-descendant communities. The countries most affected by the pandemic in the Americas demonstrate a lack of specific policies for our communities, once again revealing the cruelty of the impact on our people. We continue to die, we continue to be killed. The absence of a policy is a policy in itself!
This March 21st, in addition to denouncing the racialization of the pandemic, the deepening of racism, and hate speech, we cry out for the urgency and necessity of bringing about a turning point in our history, social condition, and present reality. We issue a global call that critically challenges the coloniality of power and demands that the privileges that have been almost exclusively reserved for white people be transformed into rights for everyone.
In 2021, 20 years after the 3rd World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, more than half of the International Decade for People of African Descent has passed.
Let's shout Stop Racism, stop killing our young people, our women, our adults.
We urge States to implement specific actions to improve the historically vulnerable conditions of our peoples
We echo the words of Angela David, the great leader of the Black resistance of our people. In a world full of racists, it's not enough to not be racist, you have to be anti-racist!
21 of March 2021
CLACSO Working Groups
Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals
Epistemologies of the South
International Institute for Afro-descendant Research INAFRO
This statement expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Groups and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
