FOR a decade, Jamaican Kriston Bell says she lived in Argentina without ever experiencing racism or discrimination, despite the country’s controversial history and international scrutiny over issues of anti-black racism.

Passionately defending Argentinians, Bell described them as some of the most welcoming people she has ever met, and argued that the nation should no longer be judged solely by its past. Her comments come amid recurring online debates about racism in Argentina, discussions that often resurface during the FIFA World Cup. On social media, critics frequently point to Argentina’s men’s national football team as one of the few elite international sides with no black players, using it as a springboard to highlight the country’s history of anti-black racism and the erasure of its Afro-Argentine population.

Argentina’s controversial anti-black history is rooted in a 19th-century nation-building project that sought to establish the country as a predominantly European society. Historians say this was achieved through policies that encouraged large-scale European immigration, the marginalisation of Afro-Argentines and Indigenous peoples, and the gradual erasure of their contributions from the country’s official history.