George Reid Andrews on Afro-Uruguayan Presence

George Reid Andrews, who has extensively researched the Afro-Latin American experiences in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Central America, and elsewhere, delivers a fascinating lecture on the Afro-Uruguayan presence. He demonstrates the surprising amount of egalitarian relations between people of African and European descent in Uruguay. Indeed, Uruguay has something like the lowest poverty rate, of 7%, and the degree of maldistributed wealth is the lowest in Latin America, save Cuba. The result of Uruguayan social democracy over 100 years has led to lower class inequality. However, black poverty rates are twice as high as white poverty rates, blacks earn about 60% as white workers, and are in a similar position as African-Americans vs. white Americans in the US, despite the relatively high levels of class equality in Uruguay. The Uruguayan government recognizes the persistence of racial inequality, however, instead of pretending to be a racial democracy.

According to my estimates, which can be seen here, the Uruguayan black population is around 9.1% of the total, so 300,000, mostly concentrated around Montevideo, the capital. Watch George Reid Andrews talk about the African presence in Uruguay.