The Curious Case of Racism In Puerto Rico

After living and working in PR for some years, I am still always perplexed when a friendly Puerto Rican brings up the issue of racism and how it does not exist in PR.  Perhaps this is an attempt to try to portray PR in its best light, or it could be wishful thinking.  Whatever the case, it could not be further from the truth.

So what accounts for this disconnect of whether PR is racist or not?  I believe most PR have an overly simplistic notion of what constitutes racism.  Sure, the KKK does not exist in PR, there is no history of lynching, and the mixed population of people get along relatively peacefully.

But what the Puerto Rican misses is that its variant of anti-black racism is WORSE than that of the US mainland.  How could I say that, you ask?  Well, racial discrimination is an everyday phenomenon in PR.  This finally was brought to light by Reggaeton star Tego Calderon who hails from Loiza, PR, the town most associated with black Puerto Ricans.  Calderon wrote that racism is worse in PR because it is universally denied.

This denial comes in the form of Black Puerto Ricans claiming there is no racism, yet they consider themselves white on self-identification forms.  It comes in the form of Black Puerto Ricans claiming there is no racism, yet they usually do not even consider attending university in PR as it "is just not for them."  It comes in the form of Black Puerto Ricans claiming there is no racism, yet they know that the highest paying professions and most lucrative jobs are reserved for "Los Finos," or the white elite Puerto Ricans.

One other fallacy in Puerto Rico is the "We are all Puerto Ricans, whatever our color so we have not racism here."  This may be true, but most Americans consider themselves "all Americans" regardless of color, but that does not preclude the existence of racism there.  The family of all Puerto Ricans still has a color caste system that treats people differently according to color, regardless of their status as a Puerto Rican.

Yet another fallacy from the island is "Puerto Ricans are not racist because most of us have some level of black blood."  How ridiculous is that notion?  Adolf Hitler is said to have Jewish ancestors, yet he was more anti-Jewish than any other person in history.  Further, many white Americans have native American and even African blood, but that never stopped them from killing natives or discriminating against blacks over the years.


From a personal standpoint, a friend of mine came to Puerto Rico as a manager of a pretty big organization.  His status as an African American was a bone of contention when he began instituting changes in an under-performing institution.  He was resisted tooth and nail, falsely accused of managerial misconduct, and even stereotyped as creating fear in the office.  After a tumultuous year, my friend had enough documented evidence to begin firing people and replacing them with high performers with integrity.  But his ordeal of insubordination from a few subordinates was based on his skin color as most whites in PR could not handle a black person in a position of authority over them.


Finally, when a PR gentleman proudly boasted to me how PR has no racism, I asked him, "Could a black Puerto Rican ever be elected Governor of PR?"  He thought for a moment, and said, "Probably not, I see your point."


So for all of the racist history of the US mainland, African Americans are well represented in the middle and upper classes, attend university in the thousands and increasingly obtain advanced degrees.  They have multi-millionaires who are not associated with sports or entertainment, and even the current President of the USA is African American.  In contrast, black PR languish in isolation on the island and they are shunned from partaking in the means of social mobility reserved for non-blacks there.

There is indeed racism in Puerto Rico, and it is high time to stop the charade down there.  Having said that, black Puerto Ricans themselves have the onus of stopping the denial and starting the move to educate themselves and build institutions that increase their progress.  Until that happens, they will remain the ridiculed demographic group that does not realize that the joke is on them.  

Racial Baggage and Traveling Abroad

The eloquent "eN" of YouTube fame speaks here on the sad but prevalent tendancy for some African-Americans to refrain from traveling abroad for fear of being mistreated on account of their race. True incidents of rudeness do occur, but they are grossly outnumbered by positive interactions that make other Americans envious of the attention.

To Be Successful, Male, and Black: Common Perceptions.

In my estimation, roughly 50 to 80 percent of people anywhere in the world are neutral at the sight of a black man who appears polished and successful. However, the other 20 to 50 percent tend to fall into one or more of the following categories:

The Inspired Onlooker: These will see you as an interesting person to get to know, or a paradigm to emulate. These people are well-intentioned and the females are most open to dating black men. Think of these as the "Wow, a successful black man, he must be a remarkably intelligent and charming individual to get where he is today" crowd.

The Validated Onlooker: These individuals may be very successful themselves or well on their way to being successful. They see the successful black man as a validation of their view that all people can make it given the right opportunities and life choices. Think of these as the "We are all the same given the right circumstances in which to thrive" crowd.

The Patronizing Onlooker: While not ill-intentioned, these individuals only see you through the lens of stereotype. This is the person that does not pick up on your behavior, dress, and mannerisms, but your skin color. These individuals may seek to develop rapport with you by uttering some hip hop slogan, or by abruptly patting you the back as if you are some athlete who just scored. This is the "I wonder which he is, an athlete or entertainer" crowd. In my experience, this type seems to be most prevalent in Asian and East European countries and those with high poverty rates.

The Resentful Onlooker: This is a person of which you should be wary. They may simply watch you with an expressionless demeanor, or they may actually engage you in conversation in an effort to discover what you are all about. Whatever the case, they do not like you as you remind them of their own failure and insecurity. They are the "How in the world can this black guy have his stuff together, and I can't?" They need to be let off the hook by learning that you are a cheat, a fraud, or a fool and that is what they seek to discover by interacting with you. They may try to provoke you with some verbal slight or insult to gauge your reaction, or they may simply watch your every move. They represent the disingenuous, smiling stranger that you know has an ulterior motive.


The Self-Preservationist Onlooker: This is the most dangerous of all. This is the person that seeks to destroy you or your well-being because his/her world view does not comport with what you represent when compared with what they represent. Your very presence is interpreted as a threat to their relevance. These individuals range from the unemployed, to the lonely skinhead who wants you out of his country because women pay more attention to you. But, more often, they are the black female co-workers who sees you as a challenge to their positions in the organization. Just as the skinhead seeks to destroy your physical being, the black female self-preservationist onlooker seeks to destroy your reputation, your respect in the eyes of others, and your place as a credible contributor in the organization. Whether it is by luring you into conflict or setting you up for termination, this person wants you demolished as a threat to her social position.

It takes experience to quickly determine if someone embodies one of the above profiles. Sometimes people exhibit elements of more than one profile, and yet others can drift from one into another with time.

The Muted Condemnation of Murderer Raymond Clark

The nation was captivated with the disappearance of Yale grad student Annie Le. I recall seeing interviews with Yale students that they always felt they had to be careful in the Yale university "neighborhood" and now they feel that way more so.

Now that it is has been established that the killer was white, preppy Raymond Clark, the outcry has been muted to non-existent. It is obvious that this is not the face of the killer in the minds of most Americans.

Now that we know he is white, it is interesting to hear the rationalizations about why he resorted to killing her. Mental illness, extreme distress, etc, everything but out and out evil.

Consider for a moment if the killer would have been non-white. We would have seen an outcry for the killer's head immediately. I don't think that Annie Le would approve of the pass granted by the court of public opinion to Raymond Clark. I hope that the courts do their job and put this individual away for the rest of his life. The misery he will endure in prison will be far greater in duration than the pain he inflicted on poor Annie.

The Thinly-Veiled Bigotry Towards President Obama

Three recent events are the bigotry I predicted for President Obama the night he won the election. The explosive health care "town halls" designed to undermine the success of the President's initiative on emotional grounds, the anger at the President's plan to address school children, and the visceral "You lie "outburst of Representative Joe Wilson during Obama's health care address to Congress. How dare Obama win the presidency and deign to expect to accomplish anything! An accomplished Obama further whittles away at the white supremacist agenda so every effort must be made to undermine his success and dignity in their minds.



There are some Americans who refuse to acknowledge the dignity of the office on racial grounds alone. This begs the question. Would these recent occurrences have taken place if Obama were white? Surely not. As time goes on, a subset of these collectivist half-wits will get used to Obama's presidency. But most of these people will remain entrenched in the benighted mentality that they don't even know afflicts them.

Fortunately, most Americans are not moved by this nonsense and recognize it for what it is worth. But any suggestion that America is no longer gripped by it's white supremacist past falls upon deaf ears when this stuff continues.

Professor Gates And the Cambridge, MA Police Matter

The dispute between Henry Louis Gates and arresting Officer Crowley took an uptick when President Obama joined the fray. Now, legions of cops are lending their support to Officer Crowley in light of all the heat he is taking.

What the media is missing are the true issues that are going on here: Gates' lack of civility to the Officer and the American rebuttable presumption of black guilt. Had these two factors not been at play in the incident, there would likely have been no arrest and no explosion into a larger debate on race.

Professor Gates is a man of high esteem. He therefore likely has a bit of a chip on his shoulder that rubbed the investigating officer the wrong way. Any one with common sense understands that an officer has considerable discretion to arrest or grant a warning. If you insult or show disrespect to an officer, you will likely be arrested when the officer could have used discretion to not arrest you.

As for Officer Gates, he is American, born and bred, and he likely embodies the notion that blacks represent a criminal risk higher than that of whites. For those Americans without keen skills of discernment, like the neighbor who called the police when she saw a "black man" (Gates) fumbling on Gates porch, ANY black man is a criminal risk, not just the obvious ones.

Officer Gates extra scrutiny of the black Gates and Gates' arrogance that he was somehow immune to the extra scrutiny gave rise to this matter.

Both men are digging their heels in and maintain the error of the other party.
Yes, America does still have an obsession with caste and stereotype. To the extent that we deny it exists is the extent we will be disappointed when incidents like this rear their heads.

Oh yes; President Obama, stick to health care reform and the economy. You should not be in the weeds on issues of this nature!

Has Culture Supplanted Race in the American Social Landscape?

Over the years, much has been written about the American racial question and its impact on life in the United States. Conspicuously absent from the debate has been a recognition of how racism may now be but a convenient proxy for cultural marginalization. When racial minorities experience discrimination today, the cause is most likely rooted in differences of culture rather than differences in inherited physical characteristics. Perhaps the time has finally come to attribute American intergroup tensions to “culturism” vice racism. The difference is far more than semantic and it could suggest that America has unknowingly turned the corner in regard to relations between racial groups.

It is well settled that race has been the historically predominant factor negatively impacting the lives of racial minorities. However, upon close examination of the current condition of let’s say, blacks, it becomes increasingly clear that we are most likely to be discriminated against if and when we function outside of what is considered the cultural mainstream. If this is indeed true, the implications would be profoundly positive. Race is an immutable characteristic that one cannot change; culture however, is very changeable through familiarity and conditioning.

When whites discriminate against blacks today, it is likely that they do so because of negative perceptions of differing attitudes, behaviors and communication styles, whether real or imagined. It is rare today for whites to discriminate against blacks due solely to the physical traits associated with being black.
For example, there exists a sizable and growing class of affluent and successful blacks who have sufficiently adopted the practices and mores of mainstream society. Their adoptions of corporate language, etiquette, and values have equipped them to persevere in America’s competitive environment despite their racial differences. In contrast, the most underachieving strata of blacks tend to function farthest from the cultural mainstream core. Does it follow that a possible solution to the discrimination that blacks and others experience is mainstream acculturization?

Sadly, vehement and defiant resistance to mainstream acculturization remain the rule in many black communities. Years of continual exclusion from American mainstream life has given rise to a vibrant black sub-culture that, among other things, prides itself in rejecting vestiges of the cultural mainstream. That this rejection stifles upward mobility is seldom considered in some black communities. Therein dwells the new American dilemma. To expect these blacks to abandon their familiar culture in favor of a historically hostile mainstream would be truly ambitious. This difficulty notwithstanding, this should be increasingly acknowledged as a critical cultural goal to be pursued.

Some critics might consider this mainstream acculturization to be a form of denial of ethnic heritage. This need not be the case. Obtaining the ability to function in a different cultural milieu does not necessarily displace one’s original cultural disposition. For example, when foreign businessmen come to the United States, they quickly realize that they must adopt American corporate modes of dress, speech, behavior if they expect to make positive impressions in the business world. Are these foreign businessmen thereby rejecting the heritage from which they came? Surly they are not.

Further, notable figures like Denzel Washington, Condolezza Rice and Michael Jordan are respected and admired by Americans across the demographic spectrum. Are they any less Black by heritage and culture as a result? Again, this is not the case.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that racism no longer exists in American life. In some environments, it continues to be an everyday phenomenon. More often than not however, American racism now consists of slights and indignities rather than systemic measures used to subjugate people as in years past. This fact alone demonstrates just how far American society has come in lessening the relevance of race, per se, as a barrier to equal participation in the American dream. And despite the protestations racial pessimists would have us believe, we are obviously well along the right path.

If White Americans Are To Be Envied, Here's Why.

I am not one to assume that whites enjoy any innate advantage in the United States. There are poor whites, middle class whites, and affluent whites who have varying degrees of hurdles to overcome in day to day life.

But if there is one thing that whites enjoy that let's say blacks do not, it is respect for their individualism. By this I mean, a white person can choose to be a redneck, a wall street banker, a conservative, a liberal, or a hermit and society does not castigate them for not adhering to a predetermined role assigned to whiteness.

Blacks on the other hand, are expected to think a certain way, assume certain characteristics, and embody stereotype. For example, Barney Frank and Rush Limbaugh are polar opposites. One is a gay, left-wing Member of Congress and the other is a heterosexual, right-wing political pundit. They have nothing in common, yet they are both full-fledged whites. On the other hand, Al Sharpton and Clarence Thomas represent the same continuum in Black America. However, Thomas is castigated as "not authentically Black," as a racial turncoat, and as some sort of an anomoly by both many blacks and whites. Sharpton, eccentricities and all, would be viewed as the true black of the two.

What is going on here? On the black side, there is an unabashed collectivist mindset that deems any black person as a single part of the whole, a "brother" if you will.

On the white side, it is a bit different. Most whites take their cue about blacks from limited personal experience and politically correct practices demanded by blacks. Whites are thus conditioned and encouraged by blacks to view blacks in a collectivist manner.

Both are misguided. Until Americans extend the burden of individual assessment to persons of ALL ethnicities, the double standard will persist.