Latin America: Racial Exclusion and Political Turmoil in the Time of Covid-19

Latin America is now the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic: while the region accounts for 8% of the world population, it now accounts for nearly 30% of global fatalities. The Covid-19 pandemic is aggravating already deteriorating social conditions and increasing political turmoil—both developments set in motion by the decline of commodity prices that began in 2011. The pandemic has also put a serious strain on already weak health care services. A United Nations report warns that if the region is unable to control the spread of the disease, an estimated 45 million people will fall below the poverty line.

Race and Disadvantage in Latin America

The pandemic is not only disproportionately hitting the disadvantaged—poor Afro, Indigenous and mixed-race communities--but the attendant rise in poverty will mean a loss in the social improvements these citizens obtained since the mid-2000s. In retrospect, the period of the pink tide—the rise of left political leaders to power throughout the region—was a period without precedent. Poverty and inequality declined as commodity booms produced economic growth, a rise in government revenue, and the implementation of programs to address the needs of the poor. Between 2002 and 2012, the incidence of poverty in Latin America declined from 44% to 28% of the population, and extreme poverty from 19% to 11% of the population.

In Latin America, ethnicity/race and social class coincide. White and lighter skinned people are generally better educated, have access to better services (education and health care, for example), have better jobs (are much more likely to have formal employment), and higher incomes. Darker skinned populations (Afro Latin Americans, Indigenous people, and darker skinned mixed blood populations), on the other hand, have suffered a high incidence of poverty, are often own-account workers with precarious employment, are poor peasant farmers, or work as day labourers in the rural sector. With the rise of right-wing governments to power, these groups are faced with governments which, if not out rightly racist in their attitudes, are unsympathetic to the difficulties faced by their Black, Indigenous and dark-skinned populations. Brazil is a good case in point.

Brazil, Racial Exclusion, and Covid-19

Despite its mythology of racial equality, Brazil has long been characterized by a socio-economic hierarchy based on race. According to the 2010 Brazilian census, white and Asian Brazilians earned twice as much as black or mixed-race Brazilians. However, the commodity boom and pro poor policies under the left governments of Presidents Lula and Rousseff signalled some progress toward closing the gap insofar as a significant proportion of the 30 million Brazilians who ceased to be poor over the past decade were Black. Since the structural nature of exclusion remained largely intact (lower educational opportunities, racial discrimination in hiring, lack of formal employment), these newly non-poor are already seeing their economic gains disappear, while facing much greater health risks than their lighter skinned middle and upper-class compatriots. While the commodity boom stimulated some increase in formal employment, significant numbers remained in informal employment and therefore without social protection—across the region an estimated 25 percent of the economically active population were still own-account workers when the decline in commodity prices hit. With the slowdown of economic activities arising with both the decline in commodity prices and the pandemic, incomes have declined. In Brazil, in the beginning of 2020, the average income of the poorest half of the population dropped 7.7% while inequality is on the rise. Although the cavalier attitude toward the pandemic on the part of current president, Jair Bolsonaro, has certainly contributed to the spread of the disease, poverty and the conditions associated with it have been instrumental in contributing to high levels of covid-19 infections. Without social security protection, informal workers had no choice but to continue working (selling food in the streets, shining shoes, cleaning the homes of the middle and upper classes). In addition, living in densely populated urban areas, Brazil’s darker-skinned citizens have no hope of avoiding infection through social distancing. Brazil’s slums, as is the case throughout Latin America, have inadequate access to water and sanitation, making it difficult to follow basic hygiene recommendations like hand washing with soap.

Indigenous protests against burning the Amazon

Not surprisingly, in Brazil (and elsewhere in the region), the virus has spread rapidly into the favelas (slums) of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where the cities’ Afro and dark-skinned poor reside. The Brazilian Health Ministry has acknowledged high COVID-19 death rates among Afro-Brazilians, a category that includes people who identify as “black” or “brown” in the census. In addition, people younger than 50 years have been hospitalized and have died at higher rates in Brazil than in Europe, China and the USA, a fact highly suggestive of the impact of poverty on increased vulnerability to the disease. With its health system on the brink of collapse, poor Brazilians, who might have survived had they been able to access good hospital care, are dying of COVID-19. It is important to bear in mind that Afro and dark-skinned Brazilians were already facing significant health risks, such respiratory and kidney problems, prior to the onset of the pandemic due to food insecurity and inadequate access to medicine.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian government’s preoccupation with opening up the Amazon for increased commercial agricultural production, has increased the risk to poor communities in that region during the pandemic. Bolsonaro’s government has rapidly dismantled policies that protected Indigenous and traditional communities, with the result that Covid-19 has spread rapidly into the Amazon, with unusually high fatality rates. Such blatant disregard for the welfare of the country’s Indigenous population is a reflection of what can only be described as a deep seated racism perhaps best reflected in Bolsonaro’s statement that, “Indians are undoubtedly changing … They are increasingly becoming human beings just like us.”

Politics in the Time of Covid-19

Anti Bonsonaro, anti racism protests, Brazil

When the coronavirus arrived in Latin America, the region was already experiencing widespread protest activity—in Ecuador, for example, against the removal of gas subsidies, cuts in government expenditure, and corruption. In Bolivia there were protests against electoral fraud, against the exit of Evo Morales from the presidency, and, more recently against the government’s decision to postpone the election due to the pandemic. These latter protests reflect deep Indigenous fears that the gains under Indigenous president Evo Morales will be lost if the election is not held immediately. The extent to which race has become a polarizing political issue was reflected in the words of the current right-wing president, who did not hesitate to cast dispersion on the Indigenous identity of outgoing president Morales, referring to him as “the poor Indian clinging to power”—an indication of the deep animosity of upper and middle class Bolivians to the ascent to power of an Indigenous leader.

In Brazil, “Stop Bonsonaro” protests have occurred in a context where the number of deaths from the virus have risen above 57,000. Demanding Bolsonaro’s resignation these anti-government protests have merged with unrest over other related issues, particularly racism and gay rights. The government has responded with repression. In addition, Indigenous protesters blocked major highways in Brazil, demanding increased government efforts, in the form of restrictions on the entry of outsiders into their communities and more protective equipment, to help them cope with the pandemic. Mobilization by Brazil’s racialized populations has been made even more difficult because of the President’s tough-on-crime, and shoot-to-kill policies.

In both Brazil and Bolivia (among others), where governments have overpaid private sector cronies for hospital and other equipment related to the pandemic, Covid-19 has opened the door to even more corruption. While corruption was common before the pandemic, the health crisis has spurred the abandonment of competitive bids and oversight in the rush to disperse emergency funds. At the same time, the pandemic has triggered emergency measures (the imposition of curfews, restrictions on movement) that suggest a growing centralization of power and a tendency to authoritarian solutions, particularly given what appears to be unrest and growing political polarization, in contexts of sharp economic and social deterioration. Covid-19 is shining a harsh light on Latin America’s deep social and political fissures and raising increasingly difficult political challenges.