Race: Then and Now

Simón Bolívar had the idea of uniting South American countries through the idea that they are all "South- American", using race and South- American identification as his convincing factors in persuading people of the countries he wanted to unite to get on board with his plan. He tried to paint the picture of one big culture coming together through Gran Colombia, but in the end was not able to fully complete his plan as many countries broke off right before his retirement.

Bolívar started out as a young officer in Caracas in 1810, whose goal was to liberate the whole of New Granada from Spanish rule. From 1811 until 1830 he worked to liberate and unite South American countries with the goal of creating “Gran Colombia”, one large South American Republic. But, due to the frequent reconquering of the countries by Spain and the many formal seceding’s by independent South American countries just before Simón Bolívar retired he was never able to unite all of the countries simultaneously thus causing his dream of one big republic to fall apart. He wanted to unite all of the countries through the idea that they could all identify as one thing; South American. Because the countries were so heavily divided by social class based on race at the time, the idea of all uniting under one identity was appealing to everyone, except the Spanish who controlled the countries of course. Due to frequent reconquering, the countries were forced to create their own identities to unite under in the meantime, as they didn’t belong in one place for long periods of time. Because of this development, once Gran Colombia was finally formed, many countries seceded from it; their individual country’s identification and unity being enough. Simón Bolívar was able to use race to unite South Americans through South-American-ness, inspiring those countries to individualize even further creating the cultures of the modern South American countries we know today.

The article I chose, “Chris Rock: How We Talk About Race in U.S. Is ‘Nonsense’”, from TIME.com, is written by Maya Rhodan, and is a piece describing Chris Rock’s thoughts on race in the US. It is not an article that is reactant to one particular event, but rather a perspective on racial progress of blacks and whites in the US as a whole lately and the misconceptions it carries. Racial progress is talked about often when referring to the way blacks are treated and the accomplishments black people make, and in the article, Chris Rock explains why he thinks it’s wrong to call it “progress”. Rock says, “There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before”, which is something I completely agree with. I think that race is still a huge part of the way people identify in this country, and I do think that politics are greatly affected by it, but the idea that black people are changing and being recognized because they finally have a reason to be is completely false. As Rock said, to call it progression the black people would have had to deserve the way they were treated before and would have had to improve as people in some way, but they haven’t. What has changed is the perception of them, and even people of other races. Generations and generations of white people have become educated and many have come to realize it is not okay to judge someone based on the color of their skin; allowing black people to finally be recognized in society and allow them to accomplish big things such as become president, etc. But that is not to say racism is dead, because it is certainly not. In my opinion, if Michael Brown were a white kid, and the officer were black, he would be indicted right away, no matter where the fault lays, because that is just the way things are at the moment in our country’s perception of black crime. The only progression there has been is the progression of tolerance and acceptance of other races, which should have been there all along. Black people are not becoming better, white people just are becoming more accepting.

Article Source: Rhodan, Maya. "Chris Rock: How We Talk About Race in the U.S. Is 'Nonsense'" Time. Time, O1 Dec. 2014. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.