Racism in Venezuela

Racism in Venezuela operates through the logic of racial democracy, which frames mixed nations as places that have supposedly “overcome racism” (Salas Herrera, 2005). The Venezuelan elite historically portrayed the country as a homogeneous, racially mixed society free of prejudice, a discourse that obscured racism and classism under the metaphor of “café con leche” (Wright, 1990). After independence, white criollos remained at the top of the racial hierarchy and promoted mestizaje as an ideology to stabilize the new republic (Linton Page, 2015).

According to Linton Page (2015), elites argued that racial mixing would eventually make racism disappear and pursued a unified national mestizo identity that erased Afro-Venezuelan and Indigenous identities. This homogenizing project relied heavily on the education system. As Herrera Salas (2007) explains: 

The argument was that as groups mix, racism would disappear. Elites wanted to create a unified, national, mestizo identity and deny recognition to Afro-Venezuelans and Indigenous peoples. The education system was one means used to create a homogenous culture; everybody was educated in Spanish in order to linguistically and culturally assimilate non-European ethnic groups.(Herrera Salas, 2007)

Indigenous peoples were further reclassified as campesinos to undermine and erase their ethnic identity (Linton Page, 2015). In parallel, criollos institutionalized private property, causing many Indigenous communities to lose their lands (Herrera Salas, 2007). Migration policies sought to “whiten” the population by encouraging European immigration while prohibiting Black and Asian immigration (Linton Page, 2015).

Structural racism in Venezuela is therefore directly linked to the elites who shaped state institutions. Throughout the 20th century, the ideology of mestizaje persisted, continuing to deny the existence of racial hierarchies imposed on Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations (Mosquera Muriel, 2018). By the mid-20th century, roughly 70% of the population was classified as mestizo (Wright, 1990).