AUGUST 26, MONDAY

PREJUDICE

I am about leave for Colombia with what I am sure is a head full of false ideas about Colombia. The thing I am most aware of is my lack of knowledge about South America or Latin America. I am not even sure which name is the right name. South America was never included in any class that I took in high school or college. It wasn’t included in a World History class I took in college, which was mostly about Europe and European colonization. At the most it was included in discussions of the European colonization of the world as an adjunct to the colonization of North America. But the development of the United States was the main story with little mention of Canada and a little of Mexico but only as it related to the United States.

A year ago I spent August in Montevideo, Uruguay, but half of the time I was locked in by Covid and in the other half got a feel for Montevideo and a few tourist towns, Punte del Este and Colonia. But my impression of Montevideo was that it was a transported European city. There were almost no remnants of indigenous people or culture (which could be said of Asheville, come to think of it, my home town, as well). Both, in my mind, are Europe transported, both white people, each speaking a European language with European architecture and religion. In Montevideo there were some reminders of their fight for independence from the Spanish, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

The fact is that even after a month long visit to Montevideo I am still almost completely ignornant.

But I am worse than ignorant. Because without even considering it all kinds of American projections and prejudices have seeped into my mind. The overwhelming prejudice is being played out in American politics today. There is the vilification and outright lies about murderers and rapists coming across our border from the south. And these are not simply MAGA perceptions which are being amplified to create fear and to get votes. This non acceptance of cultures other than our own, racism, allowed the enslaving of Africans and a refusal to accept them as fellow humans, which is central to our history. It was also a part of our conquering and incorporating large portions of Mexico intro states like Texas and California and even euphemistically named New Mexico, a history of which I have only a hazy awareness. I mask my prejudice but a huge amount of prejudice has affected my thinking without my being aware of it.

So here I am about to go to a new country, Colombia, which I am becoming aware is a melting pot of all kinds of cultures with people from all over South America, the people my head is filled with prejudices about. Bogata is a city of 10 millions with museums, botanical gardens and beautiful churches within a wonderful natural setting at 8500 feet.

It is also the gateway, through the Darien Pass of refugees from all over the world including India and China who make their way on foot through Panama to Mexico and then on to the border of the USA. Now instead of being bombarded with horror stories that play on my own prejudices I am going to be in a country that is the home to some of these refugees as they flee poverty and violence. I will have a chance to see what life in one part of Central America is really like.

A second huge perception I am dealing with is all the years of rebel violence and gang violence revolving around the cocaine coming from Colombian cocoa plants but destined for the United States. Americans are willing to pay high prices for the drugs imported from South American and it is the flood of American money that has fuel the gang wars of the drug trade. We don’t blame ourselves, we blame the drug cartels we are enabling. And this colors our view of all South Americans and Mexicans. It fuels the MAGA claims of murderers and terrorists and rapists. It fuels our prejudices against everything south of the border. But while this terrible gang violence has subsided and Bogata and most of the rest of Colombia is peaceful, when I think of Colombia violence is still present.

And then as I think about this I realize that I have also floating in the back of my minds the term banana republic and a recent story of how Chiquita bananas paid protection money to gangs so that they could grow bananas and how fruit companies played an outsized influence in South America. Bananas, fruit, coffee all dominated by outside forces. And a recent story reminds me of the huge force for repression the sugar cane companies were which led to the Cuban revolution. Uncle Sam has had dirty fingers in all kinds of ways in South America with our fear of socialism and political reform. But I have without thinking considered the United States to be a good, big brother.

Susie and I have been warned never to go out at night in Bogata, never to show we have a cell phone or someone will snatch it from us, to stay in only the safe parts of town, to be always viligant. A number of people have said we are nuts to even go south of the border.

So this hodgepodge of unexamined prejudices, most factually untrue or based on ignorance are what buying a ticket to Bogata on a whim are going to force me to deal with on this month long trip to the degree that I am even able to.