Afro-Panamanian leader: Blackness is still stigmatized

Panama City, Jun 17 (EFE). —  Census data showing that people of African lineage make up only 14.9 percent of Panama’s population do not accurately reflect the ethnic reality of the Central American nation, according to an AfroPanamanian activist and law professor.

“We maintain that no less than 65 percent of the Panamanian population is of African descent. You only need to step outside and see the color of people’s skin,” Alberto Barrow said in an interview with EFE.

Barrow, director of the Afro Panama Observatory, said the gap between the census figures and his group’s estimates can be explained as a matter of survival: AfroPanamanians “do not want to be black because that is a synonym for exclusion.”

In a bid to change that mentality ahead of the 2020 census, Barrow has organized a campaign on social media, “Proudly Africandescended.”

Barrow’s efforts are also focused on the creation of a government department devoted to the development of AfroPanamanians, similar to the one that already exists for the country’s indigenous people.