El Negrito, El Negro, y Nigga

[steedizzie]

I very much lament that I haven’t kept better (any) record or documented any of the almost constant observations parading through my consciousness over the last two years. Comparisons shuffle through the mind of an expatriate like the cars racing to and fro in Frogger. Doubtless, I have already lost to the whims of time countless moments that,

Comments

compassion vs. confrontation

[anonymous]

I think a lot of the difference is that in the United States, people are really competitive, and in Mexico they are more compassionate. I think these are values that are enculturated at a very early age in both societies

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[steedizzie]

Yes, we have discussed at some points, I think, that there is really no word in Spanish (at least Mexican Spanish) for 'bully.' What a cultural difference.

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[maximumfish]

Regarding the comparative racism in the US vs. elsewhere, and this will constitute the defensive rant about how we're not racist but, well, we're really not. Not that racism doesn't exist in the US or even that what does exist isn't significant, because it is, but rather that i think there is an enormous disparity between actual American racism and its perceived prevalence in the minds of most Americans. We've been conditioned into a witch-hunt mentality in a massive and long running, akward and hamfisted campaign to preach tolerance and stamp out racism, and much like Germany's "de-nazification" and it's ancestors (which lead to such absurdist legislation as banning the display of the swastika and illegalizing holocaust denial), it's lead more to confusion, racial tension, and an overall unhealthy obsession with race than it has to the best ideals of the civil rights movement

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[maximumfish]

I would also wager that just about every nationality has its own extremists and hate groups, just as we have ours. You could easily live in the US as a non-native citizen and know nothing of the Ku Klux Klan, not to mention the hundreds of less-publicized others that the overwhelming majority of Americans are unfamiliar with. Most Americans haven’t heard of the Baader-Meinhof gang either, even though the profoundly anti-American organization operated in Germany for nearly 30 years and was responsible for airline hijackings, assassinations of police officers and government officials, embassy sieges, murder of US citizens and hundreds of bombings around the country. I knew a lot of Americans who lived there who had never heard of them

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[maximumfish]

...Sorry for getting longwinded.

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[tom_gladius]

'Bout time you did!

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[steedizzie]

No, I enjoyed it. That's kind of what I was getting at. Not that Americans or Mexicans are more 'racist,' but that we approach anything having to do with physical differences quite differently. Hence, what might be shocking to me, does not actually carry the malice behind it that I would expect such flagrance to do in the US.

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[maximumfish]

Yeah, I've had experiences similar I think to yours also. There is a brewery in Austria called Mohrenbräu (which means Moor Brew, or Moor Beer) and the label has an exaggerated caricature of a black African that would easily be considered racist in the US, and like the Negrito chocolate or the artist formerly known as Nigga, I'm sure no hate or racist intent is behind it, just that that language, imagery, etc. has no local racial baggage.

I guess my point was more that a lot of Americans, as a result of living amongst racial hyper-sensitivity have an exaggerated view of racism in america, and that a lot of the disparity is a result of this rather than actual bigotry. That and that how we deal with racism in this country is irrational and destructive in a lot of ways, and yeah i guess my whole point was a giant tangent...

Man, it's been a while since i've had an entertaining livejournal discussion.

Re: compassion vs. confrontation

[steedizzie]

Ditto. It's fun to get back into it.