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Original article: Racismo de clase del ejecutivo de Landes y criminalización mapuche a Jorge Huenchullán: Vestigios de un orden colonial

By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

Germán Naranjo Maldini, an executive at the fishing company Landes, was detained in Brazil after being involved in a racially and homophobically charged incident on a commercial flight. In a now-viral video, he is seen referring to a Brazilian crew member using racial slurs such as «black» and «monkey,» as well as making derogatory remarks about another individual’s sexual orientation.

The scandal is not just about Naranjo’s outburst, but rather about the underlying pattern. Naranjo has two prior legal cases in Chile: one from 2013 for a false bomb threat at a hotel, and another in February 2025 for attempting to bribe a public official.

A man who has threatened, discriminated against, and corrupted over fifteen years without facing real consequences is not an isolated case; he is a product of a social class that has internalized racial hierarchy as common sense, coupled with a legal system that refrains from penalizing it. In Brazil, however, such acts are considered a crime. Since 2023, racial insult is treated the same as racism and carries a punishment of 2 to 5 years in prison. In Chile, this crime does not exist. This is not a legal vacuum; it reflects a sustained political decision over time.

Temucuicui: Police Operations as Punitive Spectacle

As the Naranjo scandal circulated online, right-wing media amplified a different narrative: a joint operation between the Carabineros, the Army, and the PDI led to the capture of Jorge Huenchullán, who was transported by helicopter from Temucuicui at 1:54 AM.

The image of a handcuffed figure conveys a political message. A telling detail is that no images of Germán Naranjo in handcuffs circulate. His arrest in Brazil prompted corporate statements, diplomatic responses, and comparative legal debate. His public image remained shielded. The obscene spectacle he was part of became the viral focus.

In contrast, Jorge Huenchullán was photographed, likely in handcuffs, following a nighttime operation involving helicopters and police forces. These images were disseminated by the same right-wing media as trophies.

The public arrest is not a neutral police procedure. It serves as a declaration of power over the body. The State decides who deserves to be publicly humiliated and who is worthy of protection from such degradation.

In Chile, as of May 2026, this decision follows the same trajectory established by colonial order two centuries ago: the body of the wealthy white male remains outside punitive scrutiny, even when documented criminal acts are committed on video. Conversely, the indigenous leader’s body is displayed, restrained, available for media consumption by those who need validation of their perception of who poses the real danger in this country.

No need for subtlety here; the images will tell the story directly.

What these same media outlets do not report is that most legal cases against members of Temucuicui have resulted in acquittals. This almost-ignored fact unveils an uncomfortable truth: Temucuicui is not a criminal territory; it is a criminalized territory.

The immediate context also goes unmentioned. Just two weeks prior, during a massive raid on May 6, prosecutors and police detained a 4-year-old child, presenting him to the media as one of the «arrested.» The Comunidad Autónoma de Temucuicui claimed that evidence from two different operations was conflated to present a single major «success» to the public.

The aim was not to investigate but to produce images of a «tough on crime» approach for media consumption, reinforcing the idea that Temucuicui is a «dangerous» and «ungovernable» territory. This strategy is repetitive: detain to investigate, fail in proving charges, release… and stigmatize.

The Maneuver: Mutual Neutralization of Narratives

The simultaneity of both news stories does not require conscious coordination to function as a maneuver. It is enough for dominant media to operate within the same ideological framework.

The effect is precise: by amplifying the arrest in Temucuicui alongside the Naranjo scandal, an implicit counter-narrative is generated. If there is racism in the business elite, there is also indigenous criminality. The two stories mutually neutralize each other in public imagination, dissipating what could become a collective reflection on structural racism in Chile into a false moral standoff.

Moreover, the mechanism has a class dimension: the racist executive receives coverage that includes workplace context, comparative legal debates, and careful corporate statements. The indigenous leader arrested in the early morning by helicopter gets titled as the «successful capture of a fugitive.» One is an individual with circumstances; the other is a threat without history.

Ultimately, these are not two distinct forms of racism; they represent the same order operating on two different registers.

The racism Naranjo exhibits on the plane and the institutional racism that militarizes the Wallmapu are not separate phenomena that coincidentally align. They are expressions of a colonial order that Chile has never processed or dismantled: one that constructed national identity by erasing indigenous and African elements to assimilate into the European imaginary, and which continues to distribute impunity and repression according to that same hierarchy.

In Brazil, the severe anti-homophobic and anti-racist laws applied to the notorious Germán Naranjo Maldini are a recent result (2023) of the historical struggles of Afro-Brazilians and the LGBT movement.

The difference lies in the application. The racism of the upper classes operates in private, on the plane, in the club, in the boardroom, with social impunity. State racism operates in public, with tanks and helicopters and triumphant press releases, with legal impunity. Chile’s foreign minister condemned Naranjo’s conduct as «unacceptable» but emphasized that it is a personal issue and that the State will merely guarantee the rights of the detained citizen. The individual is the problem; the system remains intact; the class goes unquestioned.

This is precisely the ideological function of the media’s double standard: it does not need to lie. It merely needs to frame, prioritize, and decide which story deserves helicopter coverage and which deserves understanding. The result is a country shocked by the racism of an executive abroad while financing State racism in its own south.

Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

La entrada Class-Based Racism from Landes Executive and Criminalization of Mapuche Leaders: Echoes of Colonial Order se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.