RE: Are Spaniards white?
October 21, 2015 at 6:59 pm
(This post was last modified: October 21, 2015 at 7:03 pm by Regina.)
Latin America is perhaps the most racially diverse region on the planet. There are white people in Latin America who are mostly or totally of European ancestry (especially in Argentina, where whites are a majority, as well as a large minority of Brazilians). There are also Africans, Natives, and people who are a mixture of two or even all three of these races.
That's why the American classification of a "Latino race" is silly. It's like referring to everyone born in The USA, regardless of their race, as one "American" race, or calling them "English" just because that's the language most of them speak. I feel like referring to all Latin Americans as this homogeneous "brown" group erases the important fractious race and class politics that ravage the region (far more severe than in The USA). Countries like Brazil (not Hispanic, but Latino) have immense issues with class politics and societal divisions. If you are a Brazilian, then the idea of Americans seeing you as one homogeneous group is downright baffling. I think this is one of the best examples of what poor geographical knowledge The USA (stereotypically) tends to have of other countries.
That's why the American classification of a "Latino race" is silly. It's like referring to everyone born in The USA, regardless of their race, as one "American" race, or calling them "English" just because that's the language most of them speak. I feel like referring to all Latin Americans as this homogeneous "brown" group erases the important fractious race and class politics that ravage the region (far more severe than in The USA). Countries like Brazil (not Hispanic, but Latino) have immense issues with class politics and societal divisions. If you are a Brazilian, then the idea of Americans seeing you as one homogeneous group is downright baffling. I think this is one of the best examples of what poor geographical knowledge The USA (stereotypically) tends to have of other countries.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
