Mystery or Cognitive Dissonance: How the Afro-Porteño Press Contradicts Argentina’s Contemporary Narrative on Race
By Fielding Lewis Afro-Argentines enjoying mate From Colonization To Maradona At the 2018 World Economic Forum Mauricio Marci, who was president of Argentina at the time, declared that Buenos Aires was “the Paris of South America.” It was not the first time that a state official used language to deny African influence in Argentina. Oddly enough, in a 1993 speech at historically black Howard University, former president Carlos Menem use similar erasures to encourage economic investment in the country. Menem said: "We don't have blacks… that's a Brazillian problem." (Goñi, 1) Whether they were conscious of it or not, Marci and Menem's remarks added to a false narrative about their country's history. This false national narrative can be contradicted at every stage of the nation's development from independence to when…