I know your history is different from theirs, but I still think it would make a strong argument and ground what you are saying.

Venezuelan political struggle seems to intersect quite strongly with ethnicity as well as social class and economic status. I think there were a white-aspiring middle class group who were bystanders during the riots etc - the same kind of people who probably say "there is no racism" and turn a blind eye.

It did not take me long to find this criticism by a Venezuelan academic:

The Left in our country is predominantly and primarily conservative and Eurocentric; it does not ask itself these questions because race does not fit well in its cheat sheet of “class struggle.” Moreover, much of [the Left] is in a process of self-destruction, having been co-opted by the government’s apparatuses, logics, and rhetoric—hence their oscillation between justifications, denying reality, and an abetting silence towards the state’s excesses and human rights violations. Only minority sectors, with little weight, remain active in struggle.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your essay, it was a good read.