Hugo Chavez is ‘Black’ Santa Claus for U.S. Poor

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HOLIDAY ISSUE Dec.20 - Jan. 2

True Solidarity in a Cold World: Hugo Chavez is ‘Black’ Santa Claus for U.S. Poor

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

“Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth, because of my curly hair. And I’m so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it’s African.” – Hugo Chavez, Democracy Now, September 20, 2005


For tens of thousands of needy Americans this holiday season, “Saint Nick” arrived in the person of a former paratrooper with straight-from-the-barrio Afro-Indian features, commanding fleets of trucks bearing millions of gallons of heating oil heavily discounted for the poor. Through his year-round policy of international solidarity – which is quite different than seasonal generosity – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the most frequently and fairly elected head of state in the history of the Americas, has revealed the identity of the real Global Grinch: George Bush and the multinational oil companies and fat cats he serves.

It’s a lesson even reality-starved North Americans should comprehend, and one that should find particular resonance among African Americans. Had he been born in Georgia, rather than in the backwater interior of a Spanish-speaking country, Hugo Chavez would certainly have been considered a Black man. The white elites of Venezuela seem to feel the same way – Chavez is routinely referred to as a “monkey” in his homeland’s oligarchic media. Indeed, Chavez’s status as the most popular politician in Latin America has resulted in a kind of perverse North-South hemispheric solidarity among white elites, who collectively tremble at every stirring of Black-brown political power.

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