“Of all the places I’ve lived, there’s only one where I felt uncomfortable being black. It was where I am from: the United States.”

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2016-01-22 18:37Z by Steven

“Of all the places I’ve lived, there’s only one where I felt uncomfortable being black. It was where I am from: the United States.” —Nicholas Casey

Nicholas Casey, “Moving to Venezuela, a Land in Turmoil: Q&A: Race and Racism in Venezuela,” The New York Times, January 21, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/moving-to-venezuela/race-racism.

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Moving to Venezuela, a Land in Turmoil

Posted in Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive on 2016-01-22 03:16Z by Steven

Moving to Venezuela, a Land in Turmoil

The New York Times
2016-01-21

Nicholas Casey, a New York Times correspondent, is sharing moments from his first 30 days living in Caracas, a city in the midst of great tumult and change. Follow Nick on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A: Race and Racism in Venezuela

Q. I’d like to hear your impressions on race and racism, since everyone seems to be mixed race in Venezuela.

—Silvia Rodriguez, Illinois

A. Race is something that has preoccupied me in my past reporting assignments, in which I’ve had a chance to watch not only how people treat each other, but how I’m received.

With a Afro-Cuban father and a white mother, I was never confused for a local during my five years reporting from Mexico. More often, I was confused for a pop singer named Kalimba. He seemed to be the only man in that country who had hair like mine and wore similar glasses…

…Of all the places I’ve lived, there’s only one where I felt uncomfortable being black. It was where I am from: the United States.

Read the entire article here.

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