Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Wed 29 Jun 2005 01:55 Post subject: An explaination: Class divide
Hi,
I believe is impossible to understand Latin America in terms of racial divides. Who believe so, please go to visit any Latin American country and try to divide it by race, American style. You'll become crazy.
But there is big divide in Latin America which is not based on race, or only partially based on race: it is its class divide.
Class is a concept difficult to graps in equalitarian societies, but is something very deep in the Western mind, and that was brought from Europe to Latin America. If you have heard about the "blue blood" of the aristhocrats, then you are close to imagine what is classism.
Class is a darwinian concept that defines the better ones are the ones on top and the worst ones are at the bottom. It is like a natural law that make people be in the place they belong. The best ones get all the money, education and opportunities, while the worst ones have to manage to survive the best they can. So the rich don't worry too much for the poor because they are poor for their own fault. A problem that is suspected to have a genetic base! Darwin would be proud of classists.
Latin American societies are divided by very marked classes that, although not as strong as Indian castes, do limit the opportunities of progress of people.
If one person belongs to the lower class, no matter the "race" he displays he will always be consider inferior. So, whites, blacks, indians and mixtures of the lower classes are discriminated in exactly the same way.
Think what the rich WASP think about the red-necks and hillybilies in the U.S.A. and you will have some idea of what class means.
Latin America society is not racist in the degree of United States, Europe or Japan. Racial tollerancy is well known and, although not perfect, is a fact.
However, Latin American society is classist. That is its sin.
Posted: Thu 30 Jun 2005 06:40 Post subject: Sailer sucks
One) Steve Sailer is a racist. Two)Vdare.com is a racist site for those who believe in White supremacy and fear people of color. Three) Sailer's article simply feeds into the fear of the racists on Vdare.com who are paranoid of the brown hordes from the Latin American who will rape their white women and steal their jobs (funny thing: how would the agricultural industry function without the migrant workers who pick our food? Don't see many surban kids spending summer in the pesticide poisoned fields.)
Quote:
The downside, of course, was that when blacks turned against their old jobs, many ended up resorting to crime to make money.
Nope, not a bit of prejudice in that statement. Those "blacks" stopped cleanin' the kitchen and started robbin' the liquor stores. You betcha! How about the Civil Rights Era won people of color the right to attend schools and work in better paying jobs. Let's see, I can either become a doctor or wash dishes? I choose an M.D. and a Porshe over dishpan hands. But hey, funny how Sailer just doesn't say a damn thing about that now. Must have just slipped his pretty little mind. NOT!!
Sailer writes for his audience with an intended goal of playing into their fears. While it may be true that there is a growing indigenous movement in Latin America that is trying to break free from white/mestizo oppression, the "race" war has been against the indigenous people.
Historically, in many poor Latin American countries like Guatemala, poor indigenous men have been drafted into the military and our brainwashed or bribed into becoming a fighting machine against their people. Thus, in the dirty wars, where right-wing paramilitary groups and government soldiers fought against leftist/Maoist paramilitary groups, the indigenous (and mixed-race) poor have been caught in the crossfire. Both the leftist and rightist have an "either your with us or against us mentality" that leaves campesinos at the mercy of either band of nutjobs. (Look at the horrors the Shining Path inflicted on poor indigenous villages in peru; or the terrors that the Right wing death squads inflicted in Guatemala and El Salvador.)
In the U.S., the supposed tendancy of Latinos to vote Republican is based largely on the dominance in Florida of "White" Cuban refugees from Castro's Cuba. In other metropolitan areas, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, Latinos have a stronger connection to the Democratic party. Even in Florida, the Republican grasp of the Cuban vote is easing up as more American-born "Cubans" come of age. Unlike their parents and grandparents who have memories of Cuba and still feel a tie to Republicans as their hope of returning to Cuba, younger Cuban Americans are "American."
In summary, Steve Sailer is a scumbag "race hustler," who makes his living by fomenting distrust and fear.
P.S. Classism is a huge issue in Latin America as it has been in historically in England. However, it isn't by coincidence that the lowest classes in Latin America are mixed-race, indigenous or "black."
P.S. Classism is a huge issue in Latin America as it has been in historically in England. However, it isn't by coincidence that the lowest classes in Latin America are mixed-race, indigenous or "black."
Hi,
I agree that classism is the main problem in Latin America. That's fact.
What I don't agree is that uppon that Triguy wants to force the concept of "racism" because in most cases that's not truth!
I see daily many poor "nordish looking" people in my country living in inhuman conditions. And there are many poor germanic peoples in most Latin American countries as well. Also, there are lots of "brown" people with a lot of money.
Besides, most Latinos are mixed-race and many indigenous people is mixed as well. So, using the terms "mixed-race", and indigenous, and trying to equate them with poverty is not precise. Is just rethoric.
The only way to understand Latin America is in term of percentages. Only must realize we don't have a color line, so there is not an official and "scientific" way to classify people.
One person is Indian, Black, White, or whatever just because one declares it so!!!
Somehow any easy generalization fails when it is applied to Latin America.
'
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