Colorism and the Law in Latin America—Global Perspectives on Colorism Conference Remarks

Today, persons of African descent make up more than forty percent of the poor in Latin America and have been consistently marginalized and denigrated as undesirable elements of the society since the abolition of slavery across the Americas. However, Latin Americans still very much adhere to the notion that, because racial mixture and the absence of Jim-Crow racial segregation are such a marked contrast to the United States’ racial history, the region is what I term “racially innocent” and thus resistant to proposals that institutions use public policies of inclusion to address the entrenched racial disparities. This resistance exists despite the fact that a recent study empirically demonstrates the exclusionary effects of Latin American pigmentocracies. This Article explores the relationship between race and law in Latin America and examines how color is viewed both within and across racial groups.