Negative portrait of indigenous people on the Internet (Latin america)

I speak Spanish (native fluency) and I've never heard of those videos :lol:.

 

I'm not sure what I think about Wendy Sulca. I guess her music is pretty kitschy. I'm too lazy to improve my Spanish enough to read the comments. I can read Spanish, it's just hard work.

 

Not surprising. A lot of people enjoyed La India Maria, when a lot of its success relies on playing into negative stereotypes. You could argue that it's less "threatening" for indigenous folk to present themselves in a silly manner.

And because classism, racism, etc. are so entrenched in former European colonies, either the indigenous have learned to accept them as every day realities, or have learned to deny and ignore their implications.

I have somewhat of a sick fantasy, where the indigenous populations of countries like Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala will "rise up" and take back their dignity and power, but it's probably a long time from now, if ever!

 

Yes, to me it is a sign of colonialism still being alive and deeply rooted in our western culture, and it has the same function it had in the past, to picture the colonized culture as backwards, ignorant, naive, etc. in "need" of becoming "civilized." Always this narrative of the indigenous people being "saved" or "helped" by the more "advanced" ways of the Euro-American colonizers.

I think so. In our times, these side-effects of colonization travel through and feed by the media. The difference is the power and economical shift from West-East to North-South. Now the South is portrayed as backwards and naive/ignorant, trying to emulate the more "successful" and "civilized" North (ex. Wendy Sulca's "Wrecking Ball" cover.)

This is the power narrative, and we all are familiar with it; I agree with gravechild that marketing relies on these negative stereotypes for success, it's speaking the language of colonization, empowering more those at the "top" (ex. making pop stars look better to the eyes of society)... and we are so used to it that we understand the joke, and sometimes we reproduce it without knowing the damage that we may be causing.

I'd love to see a more balanced and decolonized world, where diversity of cultures (and of everything, really) is honoured instead of divided and mocked. Etc.

 

I've never heard about those videos, but here in Brazil it's very common to make jokes at the expense of black and indigenous people, claiming they're stupid, uneducated or even lazy. There's also that famous episode when an indian was burned while sleeping on the streets of our capital.