[DoctoBuntonTen]

These are articles from the Afro Puerto Rican Cultural Center that explains the racial reality in PR society(the originals were in Spanish but I used Google Translate for the english version)

Denial = Racism

Racism in Puerto Rico is institutionalized and operates natural and normal in social spaces. This is manifested in a perceptible and that populations are unable to perceive it. Sometimes you think that racism is a thing of the past in our society, but really ... what is promoted invisibilisación of black people. In the XXI century people in Puerto Rico is defined as white. It also maintains the vision where wellness, beauty and happiness are related to everything that moves away from the phenotypic characteristics of the African ancestors Relevance = Not Racism

Blackness does not exist between the Puerto Rican , is known to be black . Puerto Ricans have adopted a particular aesthetic and a body construction that responds to physical models Anglos. Ultimately, required to deny any hint aesthetic body or experi ... ence of heredity and African presence in the Puerto Rican alienated or escape social situations. Television has become a major source of image production in Puerto Rico that allows people to abstain and to reassert ideological and socially constructed worldviews. On television has been submitted to black people and foreign. The message we want to lead society in Puerto Rico is that there are no blacks and there are foreigners. In the 80's the message changes in Puerto Rico saying that blacks who are are Dominican. Those causes are obvious discrimination and rejection of the Dominican community are saying that black in Puerto Rico and attributing gross characteristics, criminal and social scum. This results in conditions of poverty within the social hierarchy as being devalued is mistrust, danger and lust. Whitening = Racism

It is a process by which, consciously or unconsciously, they are deleted, hiding or blurring phenotypic characteristics that identify a person or group belonging to the black race and ethnicity seem to appear Caucasian. One way that has been used in Puerto Rico has been the ... ibujar desd blackness of black Puerto Rican figures models of national pride. As Emeritus Ramon Betances, Julia de Burgos, Jose Celso Barbosa, or simply ignore or overlook the existence and contributions of pampering. Our inability to see us as a people and our black Caribbean fantasy island'' call'' whitest of the Antilles (Boulon, 1971, William & Cobbs, Price, 1992, Rodriguez & Preciad 1995, Toledo M. XXVII). Recognizing our Caribbean identity means recognizing that the Caribbean identity unites us, not only geographically but also in inheritance and ethnically and racially black presence in all aspects of the work of our lives. In Puerto Rico people of darker skin tones are invisibilities. This is evident in the absence of representation in positions or economic capacity. The presence of Black people has wide representation in Puerto Rican prisons. Black people in their range of colors, show difficulties to identify and recognize ethnic and racially. Minimizing = racism

The minimization is how to justify and validate the positions of the privileged as superior and qualified technical assumption of the invalidation, reductionism and ridicule, representing reliability, strength and legitimacy of the other. This strategy has been widely used to degrade and diminish ... the strength of black individuals and groups in social and political movements. Caquito's character is an example in the visual media in Puerto Rico. This character represents a black child boliador with limited intelligence, who also both its name and its expressions are continuous reference to fecal esses. In the town of Loiza for example, various religious and political groups have insisted on eliminating the typical attributing vejigante mask representing the devil. This also often perceived poor Puerto Rican presence of black heritage crafts at festivals. People attribute the failure to buy it is against the religious or mystical objects that are owned by black religious entities. This phenomenon is repeated in sales of Haitian and African crafts in the country.