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More on Lula’s “white people with blue eyes”

Yesterday I posted the video of Lula blaming the financial crisis on “white people with blue eyes”,

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”

The Financial Times and The Independent have picked up the story, too.

The Financial Times,

He added: “I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis.”

The Independent has more of the quote:

“This is a crisis that was caused by people, white with blue eyes. And before the crisis they looked as if they knew everything about economics,” he said. “Once again the great part of the poor in the world that were still not yet [getting] their share of development that was caused by globalisation, they were the first ones to suffer.

“Since I am not acquainted with any black bankers, I can only say that this part of humanity that is the major victim of the world crisis, these people should pay for the crisis? I cannot accept that. If the G20 becomes a meeting just to set another meeting, we’ll be discredited and the crisis can deepen.”

Lula then made a joint plea with Gordon Brown for the the world’s biggest economies to provide $100bn to boost global trade. I wonder if white folks with blue eyes are the only ones to pay for that bundle.

At least Lula spoke against protectionism:

Mr Lula da Silva also spoke out strongly against raising trade barriers in response to the global crisis. “I compare protectionism to a drug,” he said. “Why do people use drugs? Because they are in crisis and they think the drug will help them. But its effects pass quickly.”

As long as it’s not the “white folks with blue eyes” paying for the drugs, Lula?

Or was Lula just laying out some white guilt spicing things up ahead of the G20?

His colourful language served as a reminder of the diplomatic challenge Mr Brown faces to forge agreement among the 20 largest economies. “Our meeting in London has to be spicy, it has to have a bit of heat,” said the Brazilian leader — in stark contrast to Mr Brown’s repeated claims of an emerging international consensus.

I’ll be talking about this in today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern. Chat’s open by 10:45AM. See you there!

UPDATE
Vlad Tepes came out with a YouTube

And a 2002 article on Black Power? Not Just Yet…

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Comments

  1. I’m more than a little confused here, the country that has Mardi Gras, hosts the World Social Forum and is the shining uplifted face of multiracial life has no black bankers. But the country that still has the KKK, segregated housing and an almost black president has hundreds of black bankers and dozens of black owned banks. Something about glass houses?

  3. LULA IS LIKE CHÁVEZ.
    BUT WORST. HAS NO EDUCATION AND INFORMATION ABOUT REALITY.
    HE THINKS WORLD IS A SMALL BALL AND BELEVES IN RACES FIGHT OU CLASS WAR, LIKE A MARXIST.

  4. Capitão,

    Sorry, I don’t agree with you. There’s nothing in Lula’s behavior during his years in power that tells me he is worst than Chávez. He has taken care of the poors in Brazil without destroying the economy the way Chavez has done in Venezuela. He may not have a college education, but he is indeed an intelligent man and that is why I’m really surprised by this stupid remarks…

  5. Capitao is for sure an anti-Lula Brazilian.
    He is saying that Lula is not educated because those who don’t have college education in Brazil can’t even get a job selling shoes in a store. Brazilians are very hang up on degrees. It is 3rd World thinking.
    For your information, Mr. Capitao, there a lot of ignorant people in your country holding more than one degree who are just as ignorant as you are. Lula is the best president that Brazil ever had and might be the only one. His comments about the “blue eyed bankers” were a bad mistake, but that is human.
    Lula is a man who really cares about Brazil and he has done what no Brazilian president ever did which is care about poverty and not about making the rich, richer. The ‘Bolsa Familia’ is a program simmilar to those found in first world countries, such as well fair. Not only the poor receive a smal amount of money to help with their daily strougle for food, but they only keep on receiving it if they make sure their kids go to school. If Brazilian politicians had created such a program when militarism fell in Brazil, in the beginning of the 80’s, there wouldn’t be so many criminals running Brazil as there are nowadays. The children who are kept at school are being educated and therefore will not become drug dealers, kidnapers, pickpockets, home-inbrakers, etc…, in the future. This might be diffucult for you to understand if you are like most politicians in Brazil who want to keep it as developed as Haiti, Cameron, Mali, etc….

  7. Lula may be illiterate but he is no fool and he knows exactly what he is saying. The mainstream media has been concealing that he is the founder of the São Paulo Forum – the new and succesful OLAS (almost all socialist and communist Latin American organizations belongs to the SPF, such as PT, MIR and the FARCS). This organization was founded because Fidel said: “Let’s recover in Latin America what we lost in Eastern Europe”. Chavez, Lula, Cristina “La montonera” Kirchner et caterva are all the same, they just have a different style. And the São Paulo Forum has just succeded in electing the 15th leftist president (El Salvador) in Latin America. See the oficial site of Lula’s Workers Party here: http://www.pt.org.br/portalpt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75020&Itemid