29 January 2008: Murals, the Maya, and Minorities...

29 January 2008: Murals, the Maya, and Minorities...

As I looked left, I saw him lying there, supine, chained down by his wrist and ankles as the executioner oriented the spear directly above his heart. The scene was so intense that I was forced to turn away. But when I did, I found myself staring into the innocent eyes of a family that was shackled and being herded onto a ship to be sold into slavery.

These were the scenes from the Palacio del Gubierno in Merida. Granted they were murals, but the pains of the ancient Maya that they depicted were undoubtedly real, the artistic renderings deviated from the truth only in the sense that they may have not done their struggle justice. As I continued walking pass the murals, I began to see a parallel between the discrimination against indigenous people in Mexico and that of African Americans in the United States.

In both cases, the problem of discrimination has essentially changed in form, but not substance. For example, in the case of racism in the US, racism initially manifested itself through the whips, chains, and shackles of slavery. But, following the emancipation, it changed form, ultimately finding shelter in the system of share-cropping. With time, it transformed into the face of Jim Crow and ultimately into its present form, where it is much more subtle, but still as insidious and pervasive as it has always been. I repeat, despite all the changes in form it has undergone, racism remains as insidious and pervasive as it has ever been in American society. Thus, it has managed to change in name only – in form, but not substance.

Sadly, racism against the indigenous peoples of Mexico has followed a similar path. It started with the enslavement of indigenous peoples by the conquistadors and then found refuge in the encomienda system. After a series of nominal changes, it recently began to manifest itself in several ways, from Guatemalan death squads to ladino encroachments. In fact, discrimination against indigenous people today is so strong that it has compelled several anthropologists to call the entire future of groups such as the Maya into question.

In the end, such observations oblige us to ask the critical question of where do we go from here? How do we, as a collective, move forward to put an end to racism? As I look at the seemingly insurmountable edifice of racial injustice and the ways in which it manifests itself in the social, political, educational, cultural, and economic structures of our society, one fact is unequivocally clear: the time has come for us to realize that it is no longer sufficient to give our condolences or even our charity to victims, but realize that an edifice which produces victims must be reborn. In essence, I am echoing the call for structural change – the call for us to stop any efforts that simply paint the color of equality on the walls of an unjust edifice and instead, start to dismantle the edifice of injustice, structure by structure, so that society can give birth to structures in which racial equality and justice is implicit.