La Raza

(I highly encourage reading my two last posts before this one)

To make matters even more confusing--after I just told you that Hispanic is not a race but an ethnicity, which is true--we do see ourselves as a race.

One of our rallying cries is "La Raza" which quite literally means "The Race". But we are our own race, we are a unique race, we are a mixed race.

Spain tried to keep it into categories at first.
1. Spanish + Indian (aka white and Native American) = Mestizo
2. Mestizo + Spanish = Castizo
3. Castizo + Spanish = Spanish
4. Spanish + Black = Mulato
5. Mulato + Spanish = Morisco
6. Morisco + Spanish = Chino

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Casta_painting_all.jpg (here's an image link where you can zoom in) 

And on and on and on until it just gets ridiculous. After so many generations, what are we?

Most of us have dark hair, but not all

We tend to be on the shorter side, but not all.

We tend to have yellow undertones to our skin, but not all.

Brown eyes, but not all.

Some of us look white and for some of us, puedes ver el nopal en su cara "you can see the cactus on their face"--meaning that they are very "Indian" looking.

If pressed, I think a lot of people in Mexico when asked their race would answer Mestizo, but it's not often that people in Mexico are asked and there is little sentimental attachment to that label.

So then what? Honestly, I think most of us just look at ourselves as a new breed. A race created by Spain's imperialism. Whatever we are, we are. We look like this, we talk like this, and screw it, let's just all say that we are a race. 

Especially living here in the U.S., where we are other instead of common, La Raza becomes important because it helps unite us. Latin America is infested with colorism (which goes hand in hand with classism), but no one in the United States notices or cares that Juan is a few shades lighter than Jose. I honestly sometimes wonder if Americans can even tell. 

And so we have to stick together, once again. When we pushed out Spain a lot of our country was already mixed. It's not like the United States where the white settlers turned against their white motherland. Our revolutionary leaders were mostly mixed. 

I might be rambling by this point--sorry. I'll end it here, but with a big asterisk that I am talking about my own country, Mexico. I do not have any type of first-hand experience with Hondurian, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc etc culture. I have no idea if they feel the same way or what they see themselves as. 

The race of Hispanics

According to the FBI, I am white. 

I work at an immigration law firm, where I help to fill out forms and also do FBI checks. Here is the list of race categories from the FBI handbook on how to do fingerprints.

Here's the link to the handbook: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics/guidelines-for-preparation-of-fingerprint-cards-and-association-criminal-history-information

As you can see, under the white category is Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, etc, "regardless of race." That little last bit at the makes it pretty clear that they just didn't know what to do with us.

I also run into this problem when filling out forms. This little bit is taken from the DACA form, taken straight from the immigration website

http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/i-821d.pdf <--you can go here to see the form and here: http://www.uscis.gov/i-821d to read about it.

This is a form I had to fill out myself, and this was the question was one that still plagues me. For 15 I could quite confidently check Hispanic/Latino. But what about 16? I'm none of those. Not in my eyes at least. 

The same thing happened with the 2010 census. Here's a link to it: https://www.census.gov/schools/pdf/2010form_info.pdf

As you can see, they ask you if you are Hispanic and then also to check a race category. While at least the census gave us an "other" box, we had to fill it in ourselves. And what could we put? There was a lot of confusion in our community at that time. We had no idea what the hell we were supposed to put. Some people just put Latino again, some mestizo, which what Spain called the child or a white person and a Native american, though by now most of us are who knows what generation of mestizo and who knows what percentage is white and what is Native American.

So a fun lesson to be learned here is that when looking up how many white people are in the United States, be sure to make sure it's the "non-hispanic white" answer. 

Here are some articles about the chaos the 2010 census created and how some of us just went ahead and marked ourselves as white.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/29/opinion/liu-study-hispanics-favor-whiteness/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/upshot/more-hispanics-declaring-themselves-white.html?abt=0002&abg=0

Receipts for Hispanic vs Latino

So I know I've talked about this in class, but since tomorrow's class will revolve around the topic, I would like to once again remind everyone that Latino and Hispanic do not mean the exact same (and I do have sources at the bottom, so I'm not just pulling things out of my ass). 

To make it very simple, Hispanic is about language, Latino/Latina is about geography. 

You are Hispanic if you come from a country that speaks Spanish. "Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to ancient Hispania (Iberian Peninsula)." Remember that Spain is actually España  (what the country is called in Spanish), remember that h's are silent in Spanish, and so Hispania is pronounced Ispania and the connection becomes rather obvious. This means that white people from Spain are also Hispanic. This is why you can be black and Hispanic, Asian and Hispanic, etc, etc.

Hispanic is not a race.

Latino means your ancestry is from Latin America. So this map

Notice that Haiti is on the map. They speak French in Haiti, therefore they are Latinos but not Hispanics. The people on the other side of the island, however, The Dominican Republic, were under Spanish rule. They are Hispanic and Latinos. In Brazil they speak Portuguese because they were colonized by Portugal. They are Latinos but not Hispanic. 

Latino also is not a good way to judge what a person's race is, since Haiti is majority black, Argentina is very white looking, and there is really not one shade or look that we could all fit under.

There is, understandably, a lot of confusion surrounding this topic. There is a lot of overlap. Mexicans, as we'll see in tomorrow's presentation, make up the majority of the Hispanic population and since we are also Latinos, it is easy to see why Americans would think that the terms are interchangeable.

Tell your friends.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/03/living/hispanic-latino-identity/

Class vs Race: Where is The Real Issue?

Thalia gave her final presentation on a dangerous little article that attempted to link the recent riots and movements sparked by Ferguson and the like to class as opposed to race. The way the author argued was a bit disconcerting, as he seemingly aimed to eliminate our need for racial focus in exchange for a focus on class. I can see how these two things are definitely linked... When a white officer shoots an unarmed black man, they aren't doing so because they don't like the color of their skin; they shoot them based off of their assumptions made about this person because the color of their skin. They see a black man approaching them and link their skin color to thievery, aggression, murder, and poverty. One can argue that these assumptions are based on class, poverty to be exact, but this is where the author starts to make very dangerous assertions. The idea that Michael Brown was shot, not because he was black, but because he was assumed to be poor is a bit misconstrued and leads to a call of very dangerous, ineffective actions. The notion that we should take a stance of "racial-blindness" is to ignore a massive factor in the occurrence in these events. People don't make the same assumptions about a poor black man as you do a poor white man. In addition to this, if you're black, you don't even have to be poor to come off as threatening. The idea of a stereotype is that certain attributes are applied to you based off of one small characteristic of your being which, in this case, is the color of your skin.

The Role of Acknowledgement In Problem Solving

So many people today take the emphasis on Blacks in many modern movements, "Black Lives Matter" included, as threatening and condescending towards everyone who is not black. When people see "Black Lives Matter", there IS an emphasis on black lives. The Black Lives Matter movement IS trying to put black lives on a pedestal. When taking this out of the context of what is really happening around us, this emphasis on black lives is seen as a notion of superiority as opposed to equality. People need to acknowledge that there is a fundamental issue in America right now that strictly pertains to blacks. The idea that all black lives matter doesn't mean that other lives don't, it's simply trying to emphasize that black lives do matter, but without a proper understanding of what is really happening in our society right now in terms of the way judicial force is dealt with the murders of unarmed blacks, this movement is nothing more than elitist propaganda.

Those who oppose the Black Lives Matter campaign view the system as such:

The assumption that we are all equal, despite current events, perverts the real issues at hand and makes any valid movement pushing against these injustices look racist and ridiculous. The way the movements perceive the system actually looks like this:

Without acknowledging that there's an issue, no argument or logic can work, as everything will be taken out of context, nothing will link, and the arguments pushing for justice will simply fall apart.

White Privilege 1010 @ Fort Gordon

Outrageous! Army soldiers at Fort Gordon are made to sit through a “white privilege” presentation!
Posted by Fox & Friends First on Monday, April 6, 2015

Fox News has covered a story that took place at Fort Gordon where soldiers were sent an an unauthorized training session. It was called Equal Opportunity training. My guess is that this was a move for the government to make moves to educate and bring up the discussion of race and privilege. I, being an African American male, with views of sexual fluidity, and more of an egalitarian perspective on things that easily picks up on the systematic racism that has been built into this nation's laws; don't think that the government has the jurisdiction to really touch on race relations and education. The government has done enough by failing at its core goal; to protect the citizens, their rights and strive to be a fruitful nation. The government has allowed itself to be purchased by the highest bidder, Capitalism, and barter and trade it's citizens opportunities to Globalism. However I must digress, This Equal Opportunity Training was held in a classroom setting and in one of the slides there was a statement that said, "Race privilege gives whites little reason to pay a lot of attention to African Americans or to how white privilege affects them. To be white in America means not having to think about it." It seems like we aren't the only ones pondering about White Privilege in class... What do you all think about this statement that was found in this presentation? Do you think the Government has the jurisdiction to talk on such a topic as such? Have they been properly educated as such? In light of such, people have voiced their opinions of such all ranging from accusations of government brainwashing to the lecture truly being needed. I think the way they stated white privilege was phrased well.

The Many Problems with #AllLivesMatter

All lives matter. Every life matters. Human lives are "important" which is why there are laws against murder, even suicide. This fact is freakishly obvious, so there's no need to reiterate the blanket statement.

It is important to recognize the lives that are undervalued. Black lives are not valued in the United States the same way white lives are. By suggesting that black lives matter, the claim is that black lives matter too. Stop neglecting black lives because they also matter in addition to white lives that are already highly valued. Saying black lives matter, does not lessen the value of other lives, simply asserts that black lives matter and need to be held to the same regard.

Saying that "All Lives Matter" in response to "Black Lives Matter" is misunderstanding the issue at hand. It supports the colorblind theory that all races should be seen as equal, or not seen at all, which ignores the existing issues that were created on the basis of race. Pretending we are post-racial does more harm than good: just like those who support "All Lives Matter."

Reparations

While researching the HR 40 act that congress, thoughtfully, ignores every time it hits the floor, I kept thinking about the so-called “reparations” that the Native Americans were given, and the outcome of that. While Native Americans do have some benefits such as paid tuition in college and hunting rights throughout the year, the treatment of Native Americans is still slightly negative, in the fact that many of them are still subject to racial prejudices and are still stuck on these reservations.

Since the HR 40 act on the reparations for African Americans includes further education on the serious struggles that African Americans have faces throughout history, would this, in a way, “correct” the problem that still exists with the racial prejudices that Native Americans face consistently, and would it make racism and hate crimes decrease towards African Americans?

Because white parents, and of course children, are so uninformed about the sincere struggles of being a minority, the reparations bill may not be taken very well because they are taught that “it’s all alright. There’s not slavery anymore, so we’re good!” This thought that being a semi-decent human being by “freeing” slaves was enough of reparation is all too common, to the point of trying to justify everything that happened after that (such as the murders of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice).

Basically, I just wonder how it could even happen when racism is just too common of a thought and practice. We still treat Native Americans as inferior by using ignorant and incorrect stereotypes, and we still “thugify” people of color and ignore the crimes that keep occurring against African Americans. Should we make a step before the entire HR 40 act and just make an Act that makes it absolutely necessary to inform and educate children on the harsh truth of American history? I feel that creating specific courses on African American history and Native American history that are necessary for the curriculum could possibly help the future generation, but then again many Americans couldn’t possibly stand to do so because America admitting it’s faults is just too difficult.

The future of race

(I'm not sure if this is my week to post but I think I might be missing one, so.)

Everyone in our class wants racism to end (I hope), but what would come after that? Let's say we reach a Star Trek-like society where race is just not a big issue anymore. We've managed to gain equality economically, in the media, in the work force, etc, etc. We're free of major race issues, so then what?

Do we let go of the idea of race?

Play along here with me, and let's say that thanks to science, our generation gets to live to be 150, or something, and so we see the changes in society. They're good changes; we're glad for them. But could we let race go? Would our grandchildren, free of the harsh stereotypes and the punches, still use "race"? Would they even identify as anything?

Obviously I can't speak for my imaginary great great grandchildren, but I personally don't think I could let it go. I would always see myself as Hispanic. I would always be watchful of any hateful things that might pop up that are tied to race. And to take it one step further, I think I would even be upset that my descendants wouldn't identify themselves as Hispanic. There's something distressing to me about that thought that I can't quite place. There would technically be no great need for them to still identify themselves that way, but I would want them to anyway.

A few years back there was a race discussion on an online community I was a part of, and I still remember it because it was something I had never thought about. A woman made a comment about how she would take it personally if her son was to marry a white girl. She, being black, felt that her son would be rejecting her in a sense by marrying outside of their race (I can't remember if it was specifically if he married a white girl or just outside of their race in general). It was a rather long thread with some people telling her that was ridiculous and a good handful of others agreeing and saying they felt the same way. In a way that I still can't articulate, I see her point.

I still think about that discussion every now and then, and it actually made me think really hard about who I wanted to marry. The more I think about it, the more I think I want to marry a Hispanic man. And right now, my brother--who is practically my best friend--is dating a white girl, and there are times where I am honestly thrown off by it. It's like the older I get the more I fear losing my Hispanic identity. It doesn't help that my mom remarried to a white man, and the culture clash has been absolutely god awful to go through. 

So while I certainly think that things might have been better if the concept of race had never existed, if the idea had been erased in time to prevent this white supremacy, I'm not sure if I want the future to be race-less. I think we would lose something, though I'm not sure what.

What Are You Really?

The problem cases were problematic to say the least. In order to decide what race someone really is, one criteria would be valued over the rest. I tend to think bodily appearance would take precedence over the rest because that is what it most noticeable during a first impression.

Dr. J requested we find an application of one of the problem cases: I started by searching "Is President Obama black enough?"and found several articles.  In this article (http://www.cjr.org/politics/is_obama_black_enough.php), he said, “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.”  This may seem like an obvious statement, but it suggests the importance of appearance. In a racialized society like ours, if you look black, you're treated as though you are black. 

Many of us were torn about what qualifies the reality of race.  Race in our society does not function as simply as quace and therefore, there will always be aspects of uncertainty. Even is someone is really a race that is unknown, I think the conclusion for most will come from appearance. 

Hidden Colors Experience.. *Black History Edition*

Seeing that we talk about race all the time and we have been doing so by referencing African American philosophers I decided to dedicate this week's post to do some Moorish Enlightenment and this will be done as a sequel over the next few posts. I've been thinking about it as a reference to what Du Bois was trying to tell African Americans to do in the Conservation of Races, reveal what you can do or bring light to what had been done before we assimilate and become "American", or if you even want to after this.

I was exposed to my own Hidden Colors in the summer of 2014. It was quite an enlightening experience and at the same time, a hard pill to swallow. To know what I've been fed for so long.. To know I've witnessed people being played by their puppet strings... People I event thought highly of.. But then I had to realize it's been programed for so long into generations upon generations' minds  and deprogramming will take just as long as it took to upload this software of a mindset.

As I watched the Hidden Colors Documentary, they uncovered a lot about the Moorish influence and original aborigine real foot print in the world that's been hidden for so many years and covered by the tracks of multiple attempts to take away the true influences of enlightenment, progression, and to perpetuate racial hatred. Here is the link to a YouTube small drop in the bucket of the movie.

Link: http://youtu.be/Stx1haIJqI0

With recent movies like the Exodus, it's not hard to deny the racial prejudices that continue to go on today through the media. With recent events like the eruptions of #WHITEPRIVILAGE & #BLACKLIVESMATTER, it's not hard to overlook the need to keep the oppressed suppressed, to never see the light in this Allegory of the Cave. Through religion hearing Christianity is just a retold story of what really happened and created to the "Jesus" fiction story to sway the ever chained "African Americans" to dance to their beat as long as they can. Through tampering with ancient findings, the pure integrity of not only the job position but also the build of a person to make such changes to history to keep the image of oppression alive... In the eyes of a young growing "African American" race.

Take a few seconds to see what the documentary has to say and sit and think on it. I can find a link for the full documentary if anyone wants it. Or I can present it in class.  I didn't want to present this too early, I didn't want to seem as if I was some crazy anti-white everything. I just want equality and every one to embrace their differences and share to progress as a people (in my wishful thinking lol.)

Appropriation vs Assimilation

This is pretty much my favorite gif-set right now, and a good example of the active backlash going on in internet circles that we were talking about.

 

Let's be real, acting white is acting "right," and people of color get complimented for doing it. We are actively encouraged to look down on those that don't. From 7th grade til graduation I lived in Olive Branch, Mississippi. I was usually the only Hispanic person in my class. Pretty much all of my friends were white. The few that weren't, like me, tended to tone "the otherness" down. One of my fellow Latina classmate went as far as never speaking Spanish in front of anyone while in school.

And for a really long time I thought this was absolutely normal. I thought that that was just something you had to do to get ahead in life: learn to do things "the right way."

And right there is the difference between appropriation and assimilation. I was trying to change how I dressed, how I talked, what I ate because I thought I had to to fit in. Appropriation on the other hand is what white people do when they try on other cultures as a costume. It's when people dress up as a "sexy geisha" for Halloween, or when people do this on Cinco de Mayo

(Sidebar: why in the world do Americans even pretend to celebrate Cinco de Mayo? How did this even happen? Even if it was Mexico's independence day [which holy hell, it was a just a battle the town of Puebla won against the French; no one outside of Puebla celebrates it in Mexico], why in the world would America feel the need to celebrate another country's independence day? No, "people just want an excuse to drink" is not in any way acceptable)

I've also seen a lot of people that genuinely love another culture and want to take part in it. However, most of the time even they tend to exotify a that culture and sigh sadly that theirs isn't as "exciting/beautiful/interesting" etc. A good quote that sums it up is David Wong's line, "But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them." I've also seen way too many white people lament that they don't have a culture, which is always baffling and mildly upsetting for me to hear. They might not mean any harm, but it means that they see white culture as being the standard, the norm, so predominant that it is invisible to them. America damn well has a culture because the rest of us bump against it every single day. 

Link to the original gif-set

Link to the video

Flaws of Eliminationism

I do agree with many of Appiah’s arguments on the flaws of our current conception of race, however, I still don’t quite understand how one can ultimately hold an elimitavist view on the concept of race as a whole. I don’t mean to be redundant from my previous post or prior statements made some time ago in class, but the idea of separating ourselves by means of physical appearances shouldn’t seem so scary. In fact, I think it’s necessary so long as it is NOT used to actually divide ourselves into a hierarchy of inherent accreditations and rights. Race can be used to promote diversity and serve as an easy means of broadly classifying what we look like as well as where our ancestors descended.  How does Appiah suppose we go on without grouping ourselves into differing categories again? As I stated a while back, it’s hard for me to believe that, if we somehow did manage to completely eliminate the use of the idea of race in modern society, we would not more or less replace it with a new means of setting ourselves apart that would prove to be just as scary and dangerous. The fact is: while we are all overwhelmingly the same, we ARE different. Many of us share similar traits that set us apart aesthetically from others, and as humans, we can recognize this. I imagine people progressively classifying each other in new ways, using new terms that correlate to the way we behave or the way we look that, over time, collectively evolve into a new system of classification that essentially mimics what Appiah wishes to eliminate today. The issue is not race; it’s how we handle race.

Same Difference (Yes, that's an oxymoron)

I found this conclusion interesting because it is widely unknown: “The chances of two people who are both Caucasoid differing in genetic constitution at one site on a given chromosome are about 14.3 percent, while, for any two people taken at random from the human population, they are about 14.8%” (129).  A given race does not explain biological characteristics contrary to many people’s understanding.  This is important to realize because we often discredit how much we have in common with our fellow humans. It is cliché to say “we all bleed red” or “we’re all the same underneath,” but it’s true and necessary to realize. 

I like the way Appiah breaks down Du Bois' theories; If Du Bois wants to classify race as a vast family of humans, he is using the concept of common ancestry which adds muddiness.  As we spoke about in class, identification comes prior to history. To identify a group's behavior, one is already identifying that group as a whole. 

Contrary to Du Bois’ belief, I don’t think any race makes a contribution to humanity that no other race is capable of achieving. Though I see nothing wrong with embracing a cultural identity, belief system, language, area, etc, I think the ‘strivings’ of one race that Du Bois mentions should not be toward a particular ideal, rather the human race strive toward ideals together.  On the sociohistorical level, if something is worthy of attention and progressing toward, we should all consider that a goal – not leave it for a sole race to pursue. 

Appiah’s “The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race”

Appiah’s critique of DuBois’ change of thought about the concept of race is, what I believe to be extremely understandable, and proves to be a good argument. As Appiah states that the logic of race “is the sane logic that has brought us to speak of genders where we spoke of sexes…” Hearing this made the notion of race more understandable than ever. When gender was explained to me, it was explained as a social construct. Reading Appiah’s conclusion about race, the reality of what race actually is and its impact on society is understandable in this excerpt:

“If we can now hope to understand the concept embodied in this system of oppositions, we are nowhere near finding referents for it. The truth is that there are no races: there is nothing in the world that can do all we ask “race” to do for us. The evil that is done is done by the concept and by easy-yet impossible assumptions as to its application. What we miss through our obsession with the structure of relations of concepts is, simply, reality.”

The concept of race is what has killed so many for centuries. It is astounding to think that an insane concept that has lead to the thought of some people being inferior to others has been the cause of murders and hate crimes. While Dr. J has stated that she doesn’t believe that the south is more racist than the rest of the United States, I must say that, unfortunately, from experience, small rural towns still believe that race is purely biological, and they think that their habitus is something that is genuinely biological. The things that people from my hometown say are absolutely astonishing. They legitimately believe that culture and personality is something that is genetic and inherited. It’s just astonishing to me that these things are still relevant.