{"id":25706,"date":"2012-10-02T01:43:13","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T01:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25706"},"modified":"2012-10-02T01:43:13","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T01:43:13","slug":"race-relations-in-angola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25706","title":{"rendered":"Race relations in Angola"},"content":{"rendered":"

Race relations in Angola<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is Africa: Africa for a New Generation<\/a>
\n2012-09-26<\/p>\n

Lula Ahrens<\/strong><\/p>\n

ANGOLA, LUANDA | \u201cAngolan women don\u2019t like the Portuguese,\u201d says Amelia (30, office cleaner) in a matter-of-fact manner to This is Africa. If you’re not familiar with Angola you might expect this to be the start of a rant against her racist ex-colonisers, but it is, instead, more about aesthetics, as she goes on to explain that the Portuguese are \u201cugly, impolite and arrogant\u201d. \u201cThey\u2019re hideous and short, with fat stomachs, and their asses are turned inwards,\u201d she says with a broad, naughty smile, hilariously imitating their allegedly inelegant walking style and funny accents. \u201cOf course some of them are nice,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

The jokey way in which she says all this is illustrative of the relaxed way the various races in Angola interact.<\/p>\n

\u201cRace relations in Angola are amazing. Amazing,\u201d said dark-skinned Angolan Kelse (30), logistics coordinator at an international oil company, in one of Luanda\u2019s<\/a> mixed bars. His English is fluent, his accent American. Kelse has many white, black and mixed-race friends and relatives, and has been together with his white Angolan girlfriend for two years. \u201cI\u2019ve been to South Africa more than once and there I see this big separatism: white people in one place, black people in another.\u201d He saw the same during his holiday in Kenya and Uganda. \u201cIt made me sad.\u201d In Kenya and Uganda, Kelse experienced discrimination. \u201cI stood out because I was in between these white guys. The black guys were like \u2018Why is he hanging with them?\u2019 They just assumed I was American. I was so happy to be back in my home country where you see everyone mixing, no matter the colour of your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

And indeed they do, everywhere, clubs, restaurants, on the work floor. As in many former Portuguese colonies, racial mixing was actively encouraged during the early years of colonization, in contrast to how things worked in the French and British colonies…<\/p>\n

…Mesti\u00e7o envy<\/strong><\/p>\n

There have been interracial relationships in Angola since the early days of Portuguese colonalization, resulting in the \u2018mesti\u00e7os,\u2019 or \u2018mulatos\u2019<\/a>; mixed race people.<\/strong> Angola is said to have the largest non-English-speaking mesti\u00e7o community in Africa, even though they constitute only between 2% and 3% of Angola\u2019s estimated population of 21 million. The European population is said to have never surpassed 1%. In Luanda, mesti\u00e7os can be seen everywhere, especially in high positions within companies and in the city\u2019s priciest clubs and restaurants.
\n\u00a0
\nMesti\u00e7os are traditionally Roman Catholic, speak Portuguese, live in coastal cities and have access to good education. When Angola was declared a Portuguese province in 1951, most mesti\u00e7os were able to register as Portuguese citizens. Most ethnic Angolans did not have that opportunity.\u2028\u2028\u201cThe mesti\u00e7os are an undefined class<\/strong>,\u201d Ico said. \u201cWe call them the bats among the birds. They are the wealthiest and best connected individuals in Angola, up to the extent that we use the popular expression \u2018I want a mulato life\u2019.
\n<\/strong>\u00a0
\nThe fact that the mesti\u00e7os are seen as a privileged group arouses widespread envy in Angola. \u201cWhite people\u2019s kids generally get a good education. Unfortunately many black people don\u2019t have that opportunity,\u201d Kelse explained. \u201cIf you\u2019re gonna do a job interview and you have the choice between a black guy and a mulato, the mulato speaks better and knows more. That\u2019s not racism, it\u2019s a fact. Unfortunately. Overall, mulatos have better jobs, better salaries, better everything. And when people start saying, \u2018The mulatos get all the privileges,\u2019 that\u2019s where racism begins.<\/strong>\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Race relations in Angola This is Africa: Africa for a New Generation 2012-09-26 Lula Ahrens ANGOLA, LUANDA | \u201cAngolan women don\u2019t like the Portuguese,\u201d says Amelia (30, office cleaner) in a matter-of-fact manner to This is Africa. If you’re not familiar with Angola you might expect this to be the start of a rant against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,8,394],"tags":[7819,12216,12215,12214],"class_list":["post-25706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","tag-angola","tag-lula-ahrens","tag-this-is-africa","tag-this-is-africa-africa-for-a-new-generation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}