Worst slums in America.....third world or western world?

[meaburroperomerio]

I live in Buenos Aires and thare is a little community of afro descendents that have came to the country last years... but there is not a biig community, you´re lying( there is a community from the colonial ages but there is not a big community) It´s had to find Afro- descendents in the streets of Buenos Aires... i would love to see more, i like the diversity a lot... but the truth is that.

[old school]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

And how do you think are things in Latin America like? In 2009, 99% of households in Brazil has access to electricity; 84% telephone; 98% oven; 96% TV; 72% DVD (I don't); 35% computers (which are really expensive in Brazil, no cheaper than US% 1.500,00)

Where are people eating food out of garbage? Really where do you take this things from?



That's only your opinion backed by no one in the world. The Latin America IS the first experiment of European culture outside Europe. The first European university outside Europe was founded in Latin America in 1550 (230 years before the US independence), as much as all the other European institutions were transplanted here firstly. Latin America has been an extension of European culture (and therefore of Western civilization) for the past 500 hundred years.

And if you really think Italy, Spain, Portugal has more things in common with Canada than they have with Brazil, Uruguay or Argentina, you should try to think outside the box.



Really? So in 1980 France was not Western? Or Portugal in 2007? Guys, you make NO sense at all. You should just drop your misconceptions.

Frankly, what you stated is the major problem with Latin America. The elites are "European-oriented." While, universities may have been established before Harvard, with all due respect, US universities are top-rated in the world. The best in all latin america are USP and Unicamp and they are not in the top ten in the world.
Brasil and Argentina made special efforts to increase the "white" population with the hopes that process would make them more "civilized". However, the large Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese immigrant population assimilated into a "Creole" culture instead of making Brazil and Argentina more "European". Buenos Aires, while having a European patina, is in its heart and soul a Latin city, with its own slang known as lunfardo.
So, in my humble opinion, Latin America, in all its variety, is part of the "Westernized" world, but not a part of the West...
Paz, fejoada e cerveja, rapaz...

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by old school

Excuse me, but have you been to Bs As? There are around 150,000 Afro-decedants there. Some have been there since colonial times. I recommend you read: "The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires" for information about the important contributions of Afro peoples to La Argentina...

4.3% of Buenos Aires population has some African genetic markers. If I'm not mistaken, that's the same amount of White Americans with some African background.

[old school]

Originally Posted by meaburroperomerio

I live in Buenos Aires and thare is a little community of afro descendents that have came to the country last years... but there is not a biig community, you´re lying( there is a community from the colonial ages but there is not a big community) It´s had to find Afro- descendents in the streets of Buenos Aires... i would love to see more, i like the diversity a lot... but the truth is that.

Not really, I saw some every day in BELGRANO, PALERMO, calle FLORIDA.

I even had a afro cab driver...

Note: a little community in Bs As would be around 150,000...

[old school]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

4.3% of Buenos Aires population has some African genetic markers. If I'm not mistaken, that's the same amount of White Americans with some African background.

I respectfully request you read the book I cited...

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by old school

Frankly, what you stated is the major problem with Latin America. The elites are "European-oriented." While, universities may have been established before Harvard, with all due respect, US universities are top-rated in the world. The best in all latin america are USP and Unicamp and they are not in the top ten in the world.
Brasil and Argentina made special efforts to increase the "white" population with the hopes that process would make them more "civilized". However, the large Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese immigrant population assimilated into a "Creole" culture instead of making Brazil and Argentina more "European". Buenos Aires, while having a European patina, is in its heart and soul a Latin city, with its own slang known as lunfardo.
So, in my humble opinion, Latin America, in all its variety, is part of the "Westernized" world, but not a part of the West...
Paz, fejoada e cerveja, rapaz...

No, no, please stop. You have no idea what you're talking about.

The European culture IS the only thing that remained in Brazil. What creole culture you're talking about? What feature in the behaviour of Brazilians Whites, Mixed and even Blacks could be traced to some imaginary "creole" culture? There is no such thing. About the "Latin soul" (for whatever that means), do you realize Portugal, Spain, Italy, France have it, don't you? Europeans have never been assimilated, anywhere in the world. Why do you think in Latin America the things were different? Only because you have many poor uneducated non-white Latin Americans working in the US? They migrated to the US precisely because they were poor. And the majority of them, came from Mexico, a country which is indeed managed to keep part of its indigenous cultural backgrounds. That's not necessarily true for other countries.

And Jesus, it's amazing how prejudicial is your post. What makes you think European immigration to Argentina and Brazil were different from the US? 8 million European immigrants arrived in Brazil, especially in the beginning of XX century, in a time Brazilian population was about 17 million, half of them already white.

Originally Posted by old school

I respectfully request you read the book I cited...

Read the top of the article. It's Wikipedia, but you have the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro_Argentine

[old school]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

No, no, please stop. You have no idea what you're talking about.

The European culture IS the only thing that remained in Brazil. What creole culture you're talking about? What feature in the behaviour of Brazilians Whites, Mixed and even Blacks could be traced to some imaginary "creole" culture? There is no such thing. About the "Latin soul" (for whatever that means), do you realize Portugal, Spain, Italy, France have it, don't you?

And Jesus, it's amazing how prejudicial is your post. What makes you think European immigration to Argentina and Brazil were different from the US? 8 million European immigrants arrived in Brazil, especially in the beginning of XX century, in a time Brazilian population was about 17 million, half of them already white.



Read the top of the article. It's Wikipedia, but you have the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro_Argentine

Here's what I'm talking about:

1. The universities in Latin America may be older than those in the US, but they are not rated as better. Check it out...

2. There was a specific effort to bring in immigrants from southern europe to Southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. However, instead of "europeanizing" the countries, the immigrants adapted to the local culture that had developed over the preceding centuries. That earlier culture is known as a "Creole" culture because it contains mixtures of indeginous, african and european elements. Look it up...

3. Most Latino elites that I have met have an exagerated affinity for Europe. In my opinion, they act as if they were "Europeans lost in South America." They like to travel to Europe for "culture" and boast of their European blood lines...

Paz, fejoada, futebol, areia, samba e cerveja...

[Squibb]

150k afros out 12 million people doesn't make one percent at all.

after reading this thread all over from the beggining, its clear how some people have overexaggerated misconcpetions over the entire latin america.

[old school]

Originally Posted by Squibb

150k afros out 12 million people doesn't make one percent at all.

after reading this thread all over from the beggining, its clear how some people have overexaggerated misconcpetions over the entire latin america.

Actually, one per cent of 12 million is 120,000. Check out your math...

150,000 are those that are considered afro and/or consider themselves afro. There are probably 600,000 to one million human beings that have some afro ancestry according to recent studies cited above by Andrade...

[meaburroperomerio]

Originally Posted by Squibb

150k afros out 12 million people doesn't make one percent at all.

after reading this thread all over from the beggining, its clear how some people have overexaggerated misconcpetions over the entire latin america.

Buenos Aires population is abobe 15.000.000....

[Jennifat]

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

And how do you think are things in Latin America like? In 2009, 99% of households in Brazil has access to electricity; 84% telephone; 98% oven; 96% TV; 72% DVD (I don't); 35% computers (which are really expensive in Brazil, no cheaper than US% 1.500,00)

Where are people eating food out of garbage? Really where do you take this things from?

Really? 99% of households in Brazil have access to electricity? Sounds like a tricky electrical job keeping this place electrified.



I'm willing to bet the people living in this favela don't get their food from the local supermarket.

Originally Posted by Yuri S Andrade

So in 1980 France was not Western? Or Portugal in 2007? Guys, you make NO sense at all. You should just drop your misconceptions.

We make no sense at all based on your completely nonsensical reasoning formed from random factoids from various years in the past? Okay, I'll give you that one.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[Yuri S Andrade]

Jesus! I'm shocked with such distorted view of reality. I didn't expect this in SSC!

Of course those people there have eletricity! 98.9% of households in Brazil do (PNAD 2009). The 1% is lost in the middle of Amazon Forest probably, as in Southeast the figure is 99.8%. Don't you see those blue things? What do you think that is? Water tanks, with piped and clean water! Don't you see the TV antennas? And do you realize the number of people living in favelas in Brazil is "only" 6.5 million out of 192 million.

And of course they get the food in the supermarkets! Where else would do they pick?!?! Jesus, they are regular people! Poor people, but not aliens or something. Do you know how much is the rent in a favela like this, near the upmarket areas of Rio (that's why they are packed in the moutains)? An one room (room, not bedroom) is about US$ 250.00 a month. You can check by yourself on Google: "favela aluguel".

And about your last post, Chile is today more developed than France in 1980 or Portugal in 2007.

Originally Posted by old school

Here's what I'm talking about:

1. The universities in Latin America may be older than those in the US, but they are not rated as better. Check it out...

But where I stated otherwise?

Originally Posted by old school

2. There was a specific effort to bring in immigrants from southern europe to Southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. However, instead of "europeanizing" the countries, the immigrants adapted to the local culture that had developed over the preceding centuries. That earlier culture is known as a "Creole" culture because it contains mixtures of indeginous, african and european elements. Look it up...

Well, so they were the best of propaganda in the XIX century as almost 20 million Europeans moved to those countries in few decades.

Originally Posted by old school

3. Most Latino elites that I have met have an exagerated affinity for Europe. In my opinion, they act as if they were "Europeans lost in South America." They like to travel to Europe for "culture" and boast of their European blood lines...

So what? What's wrong with that? You're just proving my point: the cultural and economic rexchanges between Europe and Latin America are very very strong. They're been like this for the past five centuries.

Originally Posted by old school

Paz, fejoada, futebol, areia, samba e cerveja...

Paz? Feijoada is European; futebol is European; areia..., well; samba is mostly European; cerveja is European. And you realize samba is something from Rio de Janeiro, don't you? It's like I went to the Mardi Gras of New Orleans and than go to Idaho trying to find the same thing there.

Originally Posted by old school

Actually, one per cent of 12 million is 120,000. Check out your math...

150,000 are those that are considered afro and/or consider themselves afro. There are probably 600,000 to one million human beings that have some afro ancestry according to recent studies cited above by Andrade...

It doesn't mean they're black. They have some African ancestry. Like I said, the amount of White Americans with some African ancestry is similar.

[Hia-leah JDM]

Yeah those favela's have electricity. They steal it, not something to boast about

[meaburroperomerio]

A lot of people here deserve to be banned cause of their abused xenophobia... and they think America is the first world? America is a undevelopment country campered to SwissLand, Australia, Japan or Finland....

[Yuri S Andrade]

Here are the per capita income of important Brazilian capitals (Census 2010). The mean exchange rate for 2011 is: US$ 1.00 = R$ 1.65

Florianópolis R$ 22,861
Porto Alegre R$ 21,403
Brasília R$ 21,293
Rio de Janeiro R$ 18,223
Curitiba R$ 18,194
São Paulo R$ 17,940
Belo Horizonte R$ 17,919
Goiânia R$ 15,221
Recife R$ 13,262
Salvador R$ 11,475
Belém R$ 11,594
Fortaleza R$ 10,290
Manaus R$ 9,749

In the poorest US county, the income is US$ 5,213; in the 100th poorest, is US$ 12,008. You probably agree that all those Brazilian cities look "third world". Well, if that's the case, answering the thread's question, at least those counties in the US also look "third world".

And before people start talk about inequalities, suggesting the "evil Latin American elites" own everything rising the average income, here is the number of millionaires per country:

1º - United States - 3,104,000
2º - Japan - 1,739,000
3º - Germany - 924,000
4º - China - 535,000
5º - United Kingdom - 454,000
6º - France - 396,000
7º - Canada - 282,000
8º - Switzerland - 243,000
9º - Australia - 193,000
10º - Italy - 170,000
11º - Brazil - 155,000
12º - India - 153,000

The US GDP is 14 trillion dollars; Brazil's, 2 trillion. We can clearly see the number of millionaires is much smaller in Brazil proportionally. Canada, despite its GDP being smaller than Brazil's (1,5 trillion) has twice as many millionaires.

[hudkina]

All right you win. Nicaragua is the most developed and coolest country on the planet and the U.S. is nothing but poor people who live in the worst possible conditions in the history of the universe!

[PaulBP]

well nicaragua is the poorest country of the hispanicamerica, but he is saying that the most developed latin american countries (chile argentina uruguay and in the next stage brazil and mexico) are more or less like the first world 30 or 40 years ago. thats true. plus, gini index isnt that good in USA. the fact is the gini index in USA is worst than many latinamerican countries.

[meaburroperomerio]

I think Chile is better than USA today, not 30 years ago...

[hudkina]

Of course you do...

[Yuri S Andrade]

Originally Posted by hudkina

All right you win. Nicaragua is the most developed and coolest country on the planet and the U.S. is nothing but poor people who live in the worst possible conditions in the history of the universe!

hudkina, please, don't. I know quite well what's the US place in the world. You're the ones with completely flat view of other countries reality. I just delivered you the verified facts. If you, for some reason, prefer to ignore them, to live in an alternate world, what can we do?

And back to the topic, I said yes, there're plenty of "third world" places in the US. You only dispute that because you have a completely distorted view of Latin America, your best reference for "third world". You tend to think the place is several times worse than it actually is. If 1% of people don't have eletricity, in your heads would be something around 50%. The other thing I contest, it's the western world definition, which is beyond absurd around here.

P.S. I' like to correct my statements about Chile: actually, the country is now more developed than 2009's Portugal and early 1990's France. Back in 1980, only Australia, United States, Canada and Switzerland were more developed than Chile is today. As you can see, your definition of western world should be always changing.