i didn't want to make another post about this topic bc i'm exhausted but i need to get this off my head or i'm gonna go insane (journal factory blew up). i also think there's an important reminder here for all latin americans, and information for people who actually want to learn about argentinian history.
a couple days ago i found out that a respected blog that's about how to create black characters without being racist (run by a black usamerican) jumped on the 'argentina is white' train. when replied to by people with data and sources by brown argentines and afroargentines, she responded by ignoring said sources, mentioning blanqueamiento and saying that people speaking spanish in her post was 'inaccessible':
and while it's true that we shouldn't deny the very real existence of blanqueamiento in our history, which is the main way we invisibilized our indigenous and black populations and their innumerable contributions to the foundation, culture and continued sovereignty of our country (and therefore erased them from our history books!), this blogger kept insisting on pushing bullshit numbers:
for all of her mentions of blanqueamiento, she continued ignoring a key part of it: the manipulation of the censuses by eliminating racialized categories from them. not to mention that even to this day there are racialized people who don't see themselves as such, generally as a current consequence of blanqueamiento as well (they don't know, they're not sure, etc.).
i'm not gonna get into the absolute insanity of the implication that 97% of our population has exclusive european heritage, because not only that is obviously bullshit to anyone who has ever set foot here, but there are also genetic studies that show that over half of argentina's population has amerindian heritage. but i guess we can't expect people from a country where phrenology-based race science is extremely prominent to understand that.
and when someone respectfully explained to her that she was misinformed and directed her to more info by linking some of cumbiamurguera's (who has mapuche ancestry!!) posts? this is her reply:
'welp i'm not talking about this anymore thanks for your contribution! i will proceed to completely ignore it and in fact keep talking about this but only with people who parrot what i'm saying!'
and if you had any doubt that this gringa is spouting xenophobic imperialist garbage under the guise of calling out racism:
(hmm... could it be that those white supremacist beliefs aren't held by the same people who criticize the imperial core... could it be that the prevalence of right-wing white supremacist governments and politics in latam is directly related to us interference and has been for decades... hmmmm........)
this is the reminder for all of latam that i mentioned at the beginning of the post: no matter which race they are, gringues will always be gringues FIRST. before they're black, before they're trans, before they're disabled, before they're leftist. they will speak for and over us, treat us like we're the ones we need to learn from them and do things their way because THEY know best, because manifest destiny is alive and well in their brains. how dare we speak our language in a post that's about us. how dare we assume we know our history better than they do.
you might think this is all obvious, but many of us have been over a decade in this yanqui-dominated website, speaking english and consuming their news, politics, media, etc. and not even the most antiimperialist of us is immune to absorbing that shit unknowingly. so it's always good to remember that we shouldn't try so hard to seek understanding nor approval from them. and i say this as someone who's made a wonderful friend from the usa here many years ago, but that's one person i trust to actually listen to me when i talk about argentina and latam.
people like the ones above, though? block and move on. speak your language(s). learn your history. participate in your culture. consume your own media. go outside and protest. read las venas abiertas i'm begging. resist imperialism no matter how bleak the situation is (and i'm from milei's argentina so i know about bleak lmao).
as for the racism? listen to the racialized people in your country. call out people in your life when you can. like i said before, learn your history and go out and protest. do research! exercise your critical thinking. if you can travel to other cities/provinces/states, don't just stick to tourist spots: interact with the locals and broaden your horizons. if you have kids or work with them, or simply have a chance to teach them something, take advantage of any opportunity you get to explain things their history books might not say. la campaña del desierto. la guerra de la triple alianza. domingo faustino sarmiento was a raging racist.
i know i seem like a hypocrite saying thinks like 'block and move on' and 'speak your language' when i'm making this post, but i remember how bc of this website i used to think lgbtq history = stonewall and black history = mlk, yet didn't even know who lohana berkins and maría remedios del valle were. and i know there are teens growing up here. and i'm writing this in english bc my other post was seen by lots of people in latam, not just spanish speakers. that said, lazy can't-copypaste-text-into-a-translator anglos can go fuck themselves.
if you're still reading this and you want to learn more about racialized people in argentina (from the source, not from an ignorant yank) then there are plenty of accounts you can follow. identidadmarron, negrasymarronas, lunfardatravel and afroslgbtiq.ar on instagram are good places to start. this post is long enough, so you can check out @cumbiamurguera's #afroargentines tag for tons of info and more accounts to follow.
