Human Values Regardless of Race

Pie Chart of Race in Latin America

Why is it important to acknowledge human values regardless of race? That is the essential question we studied throughout this week. This question is important to think about because although now we know it is unacceptable to discriminate because of race, it has not always been that way in history. The Latin American revolutions are excellent evidence of this social imperative. We studied the impact of these revolutions on independence in class this week. We started off by creating a pie chart of the social rank of each race in Latin American countries. We found that the highest social class made up less than 1% of the population, and the people they controlled made up the vast majority. Then we split into groups to learn more about the revolutions in Brazil, Gran Columbia, and Mexico, and the impact race had on their independence.

My group created a list of major events that happened during the revolution in Brazil. In 1807, Portugal's monarchy fled to Brazil after Napoleon's troops entered the capital. For the next 13 years, Portugal's king John VI would rule all of his colonies from inside Brazil. In 1821, John VI moved back to Portugal to serve as monarch, and appointed his Pedro as prince of Brazil. Pedro hired Lord Thomas Cochran, a military leader, to enforce his authority in Brazil. Soon Portugal's Parliament was hostile and offensive to many influential Brazilians, which led to revolts hoping to gain independence from Portugal. With few battles, thanks to Lord Cochran, Brazil gained independence in 1825. 

The revolutions of Gran Columbia and Mexico are both similar and different than that of Brazil. For example, all countries' revolutions resulted in independence from their mother countries, and they all had a strong leader high in their society. But, Brazil's revolution ended in an empire while Mexico's ended in a republic, and Brazil was the only country who's leaders went into the colony to deal with the revolutions. Although all three countries' revolutions had different routes to independence, race was an issue in all three. Brazil's people were being discriminated against by Parliament's actions, Mexico's leader Miguel Hidalgo called for the end of Spanish rule and for the beginning of racial equality, and in Gran Columbia, Bolivar's main goal was to liberate them from oppressive Spanish government. 

Although these revolutions happened years ago, it is still extremely important to consider the issue of race in our society today. Even now, judgments are still being made based on race in society. For example, if there's a mostly Hispanic or African American community, commonly people automatically consider it to be unsafe based on racial stereotypes. We only have one black president in the history of our country, and that says something about the issue of race in society today. It is extremely important to acknowledge human value regardless of race, but unfortunately even today people are still being discriminated against because of their ethnicity.