Essay on the Belizean Situation

Patricia Ruiz

Amado Chan

Composing Process

14 September 2011

The Belizean Situation

To understand the Belizean Situation as it was then and now we must grasp what racism means. Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, justifies racial discrimination. Racism is popularly associated with various activities that are illegal or commonly considered harmful, such as extremism, hatred, malignant or forced exploitation, separatism, racial supremacy, mass murder, hate crimes, terrorism and more.

Racism dates back as early as the eighteenth century when the first slaves came to Belize. Most of these slaves came from West Indies to work mainly as woodcutters. The treatment they received were extreme inhumanity, increasing severity and cruelty. The horrible barbarous practices used to control the slaves did not end there; they also controlled them socially and psychologically by the principle of divide and rule. With this principle, they succeeded in separating the slaves from each other, blacks from browns, skilled and favored from unskilled and unfavored, Christians from heathen and so on but all slaves where still separated from their white masters. By 1833, although they abolished slavery, the separation still existed among the slaves as well as the slaves and their earlier master.

Separation of people, by ethnicity, faith, location, occupation and class still exists decades after slavery abolishment and equal rights established. Although the free colored as they were known had equal rights as the whites and were no longer slaves they were still controlled under the early legislative assembly. The divisions between people also occurred because communications were bad throughout the colony. It was very difficult to travel from one place to another and there was little contact between cultures or ways of life....