The paradoxes of racist multiculturalism in Colombia

Ethnical discrimination in an urban/rural school in Colombia

Abstract

This paper presents a series of results from a research developed and focused on the topic of racism at school and the role that legal discourse and mass media have played on it. Within this perspective, the article problematizes the uses of discriminatory expressions, which, although accepted as colloquial language, reflect social practices that have emerged at the expense of racism. These attitudes and behaviors refer to the introduction of two theses about the way in which racism has emerged throughout different times and historical contexts. Thus, through the reflection on a case study, we present the arguments about events that occurred in an educational setting of urban/rurality in Colombia, where, paradoxically, pedagogical initiatives for interculturality have been developed.  

The analysis focuses on certain pejorative allusions towards people and ethnic groups based on what they wear, the way they speak and/or introduce themselves in public; characteristics that are usually expressed through jokes and intimidation by mockery. In conclusion, the text allows us to question the continuousness of these discriminatory forms, likewise to open the necessary critical dynamization of these theses within the school environment.