Opposition candidate Manuel Rosales has come under fire recently for his policy aimed at redistributing oil wealth directly to the poor through the use of a debit card entitled "mi negra," or "my black." This phrase refers to the common practice in Venezuela of referring to people—and especially children–as either black ("negra") or blond ("catira"). Rosales has attempted to resignify the term, sort of, to refer to oil wealth (as "black"). I say sort of because of ads like the one here. This woman later came out on the cover of an opposition news paper arguing that she didn’t consider the ad racist, but of course this isn’t the point.

The point is that many Venezuelans insist that the traditional use of the term isn’t racial or racist. The argument of mestizaje—that all Venezuelans are mixed—is deployed to erase racism, and to erase the fact that despite the reality of such mestizaje, racial structures continue to overdetermine behaviors and perceptions. Hence my roommates insist that Chavistas like to invent issues that don’t exist, like racism. An acquaintance informs me that her grandmother is black, as if to emphasize her mixed blood and thereby shield herself from the charge of racism. But the question isn’t about her grandmother (as Sartre would remind us), but rather about her: what does it mean to her that she doesn’t look like her grandmother?

UPDATE: I’ve just discovered that some refer to the drink produced by mixing beer with Coca Cola as a Mulata.