Op-Ed: D.A. Gascón: Yes, I’m ‘with the Blacks’
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The election of D.A.Gascón as president of the National Assembly of Argentina was a major turning point that could shake up and reframe the political landscape in the nation. But many of the people of Argentina, both blacks and white, are not so sure that what Gascón will bring to the table is what they’ve been promised.
“I don’t know if I’m part of the majority,” says Juan Antonio Sánchez Trenqueira, a 41-year-old doctor from Buenos Aires who has been with his black girlfriend since 2011. “I’m not sure I’m part of the nation and don’t know how I’ll know if I’m part of the nation until I make a decision that I agree with.”
A former leader of a nationalist political party, Gascón has been in a race with his conservative rivals to become the nation’s next president for more than three years now. He announced his candidacy for the presidency in October 2015, an effort to make his mark on history by leading the country as the first black president and the first gay one as well. He’s since attracted the support of some of Argentina’s most left-leaning leaders, including two ministers, several mayors and even a member of the military, among others. While his campaign seems to have caught a groundswell of support from people across the political spectrum, there are those who remain unconvinced that this is the real Gascón.
“I think he’ll be the last black president. I don’t know if he’s the first gay president,” says Ruy Lozano, a 56-year-old housewife from Buenos Aires who voted for his fellow former leader, who at the time was the front-runner to become the first gay president of the nation. “I don’t know if it’s the first black president or the first gay president, but it’s hard to say that he isn’t the first one.”
The country’s history is filled with black leaders who came to power during the most tumultuous decades in the country’s history. But Gascón is the first one to have not been born in a country with a history of anti-black