translated from Spanish: Differentiated support for mestizos and indigenous people generates debate

After President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned Saturday in Nayarit that indigenous people will receive their support as an older adult at age 65 and “the half-breeds” since the age of 68, PAN lawmakers accused the federal representative of racism, and other voices have pointed out that white senators are wrong.
“Regrettable and alarming that this government made decisions on the basis of race and above all that it is externed by the President of the Republic himself; you need to read about human rights. #LopezRacista,” Senator Kenya Lopez, who chairs the Committee on Human Rights in the Senate, posted on her Twitter account.
“Only a deeply racist government would distribute a social program by measuring aid according to people’s race. This aberration was not done since Hitler ruled in Germany,” said Panist Senator Julen Rementeria, adding the video of López Obrador during the event with the Cora, Mexican Wixárika and Southern Tehuano peoples in Nayarit.

Only a deeply racist government would hand out a social program by measuring aid according to people’s race.
This aberration has not been done since Hitler ruled in Germany. pic.twitter.com/ftzrTDZsz7
— Julen Rementeria (@julenrementeria) November 17, 2019

Following the publications of panist senators, different analysts, academics and officials responded.
Ricardo FuentesNieva, executive director of the Oxfam-Mexico organization, mentioned that the country needs public policies that close historical development gaps, “especially the gaps associated with ethnic-racial characteristics.”
On his Twitter account, he insisted that Mexico is “a country that systematically discriminates, and that is why affirmative action policies must be had.”
Economist Gerardo Esquivel noted that “racism is not in a differentiated social agenda, racism is in what generates the conditions that make a social program like that necessary.”

“We’re all Mexicans. Don’t divide. Do not discriminate against us.”—All those who for years have tried to invisibilize or deny the marginalization and discrimination that the indigenous population has been a victim of.
— Gerardo Esquivel (@esquivelgerardo) November 17, 2019

Find out: AMLO government has made minimal spending on aid to indigenous peoples
The political scientist José Merino, who works in Claudia Sheinbaum’s government in Mexico City, said that differentiating the age for indigenous peoples to receive early support as the older adult is an appropriate countervailing measure, following historical and structural violations of the human rights of vulnerable groups, such as indigenous peoples.
“There is a country with structural divisions between social groups. Closing these divisions requires differentiated policies that prioritize disadvantaged groups. To say that these dividing policies is to deny/ignore/support the initial division that gives them rise,” Merino published.

Speaking of human rights and since it chairs the committee on the subject: they are countervailing measures arising from historical and structural violations of the human rights of vulnerable groups.
There’s vast literature and evidence about it, you tell me and we put together a little carpet. https://t.co/yAvDWejMgr
— José Merino (@PPmerino) November 17, 2019

Hernán Gómez, a political analyst, noted that “a measure of equality is fully justified” such as those covered by the Law to Prevent Discrimination.
The government doesn’t make decisions “on a race-based basis,” Gomez said. “It has a compensatory policy and is implementing affirmative action measures.
If you are indigenous, you will most likely live in poverty because nearly eight out of ten people who speak an indigenous language are in this situation and more than a third live in extreme poverty, compared to 5.8% of the rest of the population.”
Fernanda Caso, a columnist at El Heraldo de México, commented on the controversy, which on Twitter grew up with the hashtag or hashtag #LópezRacista:
“We’ve been running programs for indigenous people for years without anyone being alarmed. Looks like what bothered most people this time was that they were named after the majority. The half-breeds. For many, only indigenous people need to be named. Not the rest. The rest are ‘normal people’,” he considered Case.
Attorney Carlos Luis Escoffié Duarte, researcher at the Center for Human Rights Studies at the Autonomous University of Yucatan, also commented on the topic:

Only someone with deep ignorance about racism would tweet something like that.
There are no races. Being indigenous is not a race. Differentiated public policies do not imply “racism.”
And no: the above can be said without defending the public policies of this government. https://t.co/u3xtGU7i0w
— Carlos Escoffié (@kalycho) November 17, 2019

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Original source in Spanish

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