The savage outside of White Argentina

Abstract

In early December 2013, several urban centers in Argentina experienced a wave of turmoil that brought to light the sensibilities that have historically racialized the national geography – a racialization whose existence has long been denied by Argentine official discourse. In the province of Córdoba, thousands of police officers demanded a salary increase by withdrawing from the streets and remaining in their barracks, while undercover officers instigated the looting of stores in order to create a public demand for their presence. The news of the lack of police repression quickly spread, and thousands of men and women from poor neighborhoods began storming stores and supermarkets to grab anything they could, from food to television sets. The unrest spread to other provinces, most notably Tucumán, where the same pattern of a police walkout and subsequent looting unfolded. With several cities shaken by riots, a significant portion of the population felt that the streets were dissolving amid a vortex formed by the expansiveness of los negros [the blacks] – the racialized term used in contemporary Argentina to name the poor and people of indigenous or mestizo [mixed] background. On the streets as well as in social media and the online forums of Argentine newspapers, thousands of people called for the violent extermination of “ esos negros de mierda [those fucking blacks].” Armed vigilantes promptly began shooting at “los negros” as if the latter were savage hordes determined to o…