Indignation in Colombia as Petro labels people with the popular name as “vampires” and “lost young men”.
As if he doesn’t have enough on his plate with Colombia’s recent drug decertification – widely seen as a personal snub from the US government – President Petro waded into even murkier waters this week by publicly picking on people called Brayan.
In a discourse widely repeated on social media, the head of state declared “that in every poor barrio there is a ‘Brayan’ who leaves women pregnant and abandoned.”
Petro initially broached the important social issue of teenage pregnancies in Bogotá, but true to style went off script with a swipe at “lost young men called Brayan,” stereotyping them as absent fathers.
True, in Colombia the name Brayan – which is the hispanicized spelling of ‘Brian’ – has long evoked the image of a streetwise youth from the poor side of town. But for Petro, a typical Brayan – as he commented in a televised cabinet meeting – was “a vampire-like, greedy and selfish [person], who did not protect women or their children.”
The push back came swiftly with calls on social media – many from people called Brayan – to denounce this presidential Brayan-bashing, while several people also formed the Association of Brayans of Colombia, or ABC for short.
Life of Brayan
“We are not a joke, we demand respect,” said content creator and ABC founder Brayan Mantilla, also known as “El Brayan”, whose video of himself and 11 other Brayans quickly went viral.
In the video each Brayan proudly shows their ID card while announcing their profession: nurse, mechanical engineer, lecturer, administrator.
“There are hardworking individuals named Brayan, who have dreams and are striving for a better future,” said El Brayan.
“We are not to blame for the name our parents gave us, and we demand to be treated with dignity.”
Colombia’s Brayans can perhaps take heart from the fact that theirs is just the latest in a long line of popular names becoming a code for an archetype: England has long had its posh ‘Henrys’, with ‘Sharon and Tracey’ at the opposite end of the class spectrum, with ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ somewhere in between.
Meanwhile the US’s now-famous ‘Karens’ have recently been joined by ‘Chads’, while the Dutch everywoman is a ‘Gerda’, the Japanese have their hapless ‘Yuta’, and no Irish yarn is complete without a ‘Mick’ or a ‘Paddy’.
Whether it was wise though for a country’s supreme leader to be dishing out the discrimination remains to be seen; Colombian birth records show 165,538 Brayans registered in the country, according to data dug up by El Tiempo, a significant voting bloc.
Delinquent dads
Added to which the debate over the Los Brayans has obscured Petro’s original point that according to data reported in 2024, Colombia has the highest rate of single mothers in the world raising kids often with minimal financial support from absent fathers.
According to a study by the Universidad de Los Andes, 40% of Colombian children are born into homes with no father figure and where their mothers bear all costs of raising them. The same year a national census reported 12 million single mothers in the country.
Petro’s detractors have been keen to point out that the president himself could be stereotyped as a delinquent dad; he has fathered five children with three different mothers, including abandoning his first son who was later mixed up with narcotraffickers and money laundering.
“Is Petro a Brayan?” was plastered over the Internet this week, even as the Association of Brayans of Colombia proclaimed that “our name is not a meme”.
Association members seemed to relish their brief foray into the media spotlight this week. They may be less welcoming to their new namesake: “President Brayan”.