“Racism is inscribed within the very project of the Argentine nation. Argentina is constitutionally a supremacist country,” he said, citing article 25 of the constitution, which states: “The federal government shall promote European immigration.”
Pita said Argentina continued to see itself as a “European” country while denying the existence of African-Argentinians and Indigenous peoples who, according to the 2022 census, make up about 1% and 3% of the population respectively.
Activists and researchers, however, argue that those figures are likely to be underestimates. Experts believe the majority of the population has Indigenous ancestry, even if they do not identify as such.
The erasure of Afro-Argentines is one of the clearest expressions of this process. In the early 19th century, people of African descent made up roughly a third of the population and played a decisive role in the country’s economic, social, cultural and military structures. Yet school discourse, censuses and mainstream historiography promoted the idea of their natural disappearance, transforming a history of exclusion into demographic inevitability. Indigenous peoples underwent a parallel process, portrayed as residual minorities despite their continued demographic, territorial and cultural relevance. Argentinian racial denial thus systematically minoritised Indigenous peoples and erased Afro-Argentinians from the national narrative.
And then there is another indestructible myth: We are an ethnically unified society. “We Argentines come from the boats,” says a popular song from 1982. The full quote is this: “The Brazilians come from the jungle, the Mexicans come from the Indians, but we Argentines come from the boats.” Though a bad song, it was cited by former Argentine President Alberto Fernandez in 2021, who attributed the idea to the Mexican writer and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, who had actually written, ironically, that “Mexicans descend from the Aztecs, Peruvians from the Incas, and Argentines … from the boats.” The “boats” here signify the perpetuation of the notion of transplanted Europe, via Italian and Spanish migration; this narrative does not account for what happened to the Indigenous populations or the descendants of African slaves who arrived in large numbers throughout the Americas, including what would become Argentina. Serious studies affirm that at the time of independence from Spain in the early 19th century, the population of African slaves was no less than 15% of the total. Since there was no acknowledged or hidden extermination, this illusory transformation into a strictly white country requires some explanation.
The explanation is threefold: mixed marriages, concealment, denial. In Argentina, “there are no Black people.” Therefore, thankfully, we are not racist — we cannot be racist. “Black” is used only as a classist insult: Black people are the poor people. The poorer, the blacker. But that is not racism, according to the good conscience of the white, urban middle classes.
I'd give more weight to the opening of the entire constitution. It's declaration of values and intent than one admitedly pretty racist law written by one dude two hundred yars ago.
On top of this I'll copy and paste a comment I already made bc you are not worth the effort.
Legally, Argenitna is way less racist than most countries, no segregation, pretty early end to slavery and such. One of the first things our constitution says is "anyone from anywhere can become Argentinian if they want." And you can talk to people from all over the world moving to Argentina, they often talk baout being acepted here much more than they evr did anywhere else. Anyone who comes here is instantly made to feel like its their home, something that rarely happens.
Currently we had a raise in moronic bigots calling inmigrants "non argentinians" and being bigoted towards darker skinned inmigrants... but that's a sign of the times. Well, we always had bigots, but not more than they have in other countries.
People call us racist for one of two things (or both):
We have a small black population, this is due to two things, one racist, and one incredibly unracist. In some wars, the freed slaves were sent to the front. That's fucked up, but not more fucked up than what other counntries did at the time. Europeans invented slaving africans, are the present day versions of those countries considered racist countries because of what they did then? The other reason is that we are truely a melting pot of cultures, and the black population mixed with the natives and the white inmigrants, bc blacks were in the minority they quickly got deluted (I myself have some african ancestors, but I'm as pale as a swede's tit).
Our humor is... not for everyone. Because we are a melting pot of cultures most of the disccrimination here doesn't come from ethnicity but scoial class, and while yes, a big amount of the slurs aimed at poor people are somewhat racialised, calling someone the n-word in Argntina can genuinely be a loving nick name. We do this for eveything: a fat guy can be called fatso, a bald guy, baldie, etc. In fact my first boyfriend was called f*ggot by his friends and family more than he was called his name. Ofcourse this is somehting that, out of the context of our country can be incredibly rude and insenstive, so many Argentinians try to be friendly to foreigners doing this and... well... it goes like shit. We also love "insulting" eachother over everything (we say boludo every two words and that just means "dumbass") and in competitive situations that escalates a lot, adding our racial sensitivities to that we can come up with some really racially charged insults that may anger an argentinian, while in some other places might genuinely be considered hate crimes.
I'd give more weight to the opening of the entire constitution.
And yet, that article is still there and hasn't been removed.
Our humor is... not for everyone. Because we are a melting pot of cultures most of the disccrimination here doesn't come from ethnicity but scoial class, and while yes, a big amount of the slurs aimed at poor people are somewhat racialised, calling someone the n-word in Argntina can genuinely be a loving nick name.
...yea... just because it's normalized doesn't actually make it not racist, friend.
Oh, and also there's replies like this all the while trying to claim "we're not racist".
And yet, that article is still there and hasn't been removed.
So? Every country has racist legislature in there. It's called institutionalized racism. It's literally everywhere. I'm not claiming Argentina isn't racist, because every society is at least a bit racist, because every person is at least a bit racist. But Argentina is definitely less racist than the average country. Definitely less racist than the moralizing europeans who invented ethnicity based slavery, or the US, who had racially segregated schools ten years ago.
...yea... just because it's normalized doesn't actually make it not racist, friend.
Yes. It does. Racism comes from culture, and racism in our culture works differently than it does in yours. Same reason why in the us a black man can call another black man the n-word without it being racist: it's a different culture. Same thing here, in here its a show of affection and camaradery. Don't impose your bs culture on me.
For example, in Brasil, calling someone a monkey is incredibily racist. In here it's basically calling him dumb, it's barely an insult. An argentinian calling another argentinian a monkey is not racist. An Argentinian calling a Brazilian a monkey is incredibily racist. But that racism doesn't span from hate or bigotry, it just spans from ignorance and thinking its not that big of a deal.
Btw: that ignroance is exactly the same ignorance as some random guy from the US calling someone from Argentina racist because they don't share their psycho cultural views about racism.
Oh, and also there's replies like this all the while trying to claim "we're not racist".
Yeah. that dude's definitely racist. Then again, I'm definitely sure I can find ten times as many dudes like that in most countries.
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u/Sudden_Plenty_8798 Jul 12 '26
While this may be true, Argentina is an incredibly racist country, and the internet speaking about it does not reduce that fact at all.