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View Poll Results: Is the context of the usage of the term Hispanic appropriate as a designation?
Yes; it's appropriate in the regard that it recognizes that Latin American's are legitimately ''minorities.'' 14 21.21%
No; It's an inappropriate designation that was created as a crafty political device. 45 68.18%
I am not acquainted enough with this subject to judge. 7 10.61%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 66. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-12-2008, 12:27 AM
 
418 posts, read 366,062 times
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'' I doubt this will make you feel any better, but they don't like whites any better! As for granting amnesty, I sincerely hope not. Giving them a course in manners is what first comes to my mind.''

Doesn't that sound ironic though? They pride themselves so high in what they believe to be whiteness or an equivalent to. They personally and/or culturally descend from the European philosophies that spread slavery, imperialism, oppression, massive threatening spreads of Catholicism and the wiping out of nearly all indigenous cultures. And you tell me they aren't white because our media influences this? Or because low-intellect Americans can't see through the fact that ''looking slightly different'' doesn't equate to being all that much different than them. In fact, from an international perspective, they're ancestors are much more the oppressors than whites in California. Although some do descend from the south and mid west, many came from the central, Northeast and directly from Europe.

Spaniards are southern European Cathoics, so it shouldn't be much of a shock that even if you were white within Latin America that you might seem ''darker'' than most Northern-European descended white Protestants in California (or who'd they cowardly like to call ''Anglo'' to protect their whiteness and assimilative measures).

You guys get the wrong scent for what Mexico is. Talk to someone in Mexico City. It might shock you that they sound much more intelligent and proper than someone in Los Angeles. You see the worst of Mexican immigrants here, who believe being Mexican is the life the live. It is not. Being a poor blue-collared construction worker with four children who moved to California in the 1990's is not a representative of a country of over 100 million people. They don't like European-Americans because they often live better than them. They know better not to societally (or personally) talk back to them, because they know that's the destiny of their children.

That's why they pick on groups that are even low on the economic ladder than them which is African-Americans. It makes them feel like bigger people, meanwhile they're doing it out of insecurity. They were insecure before they got here because they were considered garbage where they came from. This isn't true for all, but the cultural resentment is obvious proving of this. Although Mexico has anti-black views, they rarely are assessed because they rarely come across blacks. More would develop resentment when arriving to the United States.

Similarly to Italian descendants as I can tell in my grandmother and her 77 year old friend who she lives with (all their grandparents were born and raised in Italy), they are societally resentful of blacks. It couldn't be that bad, because my grandmother says she'd dump him for Denzel Washington all the time though lol She makes no sense though. She says she'd love to adopt a black baby, yet not live on a block with a black person because it might destroy the real estate value of her home (even though she rents a two family out).

They always pride themselves in their Americanism and would prefer it over their heritage. Whiteness represented Americanism to her (especially when she moved out to the suburbs in the 1960's). I once asked my grandmother if she had a choice to mark or say she was white or Italian, what would she mark or say? She said white. She wouldn't tell me why, but I knew why. I asked if she had both choices. She still said white. She often referred to whites as ''Irish'' even if they weren't Irish surnamed or said they were. She'd do this as a decoy to saying white, preserving her ''whiteness.''

I asked her friend why Italians identity in this country over the past 100 years. He said it's because they got whiter. He said because they got more white. Obviously, because of the reluctance of giving up socially conformed ''whiteness'' lives in people of his background in that generation, this seemed awkward and rare to hear such a thing. I didn't know if he was being clever or he actually meant that physically because the U.S. is a colder country (he's not that bright lol)

Because both her and her parents were born in this country, I'd find it difficult to believe in such a foreign-born city like New York, that people would question her Americanism. So it obviously went beyond that. During the time when she left Brooklyn, NY (1962), Italian-Americans pretty much lost all their ethnic identity (even if they stayed in the city or their respective enclave). Both her and her friend don't speak the Italian language. Groups that came before WWII had about 50 years (two generations) of an ethnic identity. Nowadays, it's only about 25 years (one generation).

The reasons are due to economic assimilation and cultural evaporation. The necessity of holding onto a title isn't enforced by society. The only way you could hold onto your culture is if you take positive increments out of it (linguistics) or if you give yourself a cry-baby for attention style self-indulged title like being ''Mexican'' (especially if you can't speak the Spanish language fluently enough to confidently walk into a business meeting with). Similarly as to how my grandmother curved her heritage which she tries to reminisce on from time to time. In my opinion, the same could be said to some of immigrants, first, second and third generations we see (although most actually don't attempt to self entitle themselves as ''Mexicans'' in California - and often resent Mexican immigrants and that kind of stereotypical image).

If you think they don't consider themselves white, you're wrong. White to them may mean a different thing in the beginning, but in the end it's similar to Euro-Americans when their assimilation is completed. By that point, much of the resentment is similar and camouflage to the Euro-American population.
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Old 02-12-2008, 12:28 AM
 
418 posts, read 366,062 times
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I posted this message on the wrong board, but if any of you want to read that, it's related to this topic. I was responding to a message about how Latin American immigrants often have hostility against blacks in Los Angeles.
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Old 02-12-2008, 02:56 AM
 
418 posts, read 366,062 times
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''I believe the only reason that gets brought up is from "white guilt". In Mexico for example the Aztecs persecuted their neighbors, they sacrificed them, enslaved them and cannibalized them. But -- they didn't feel any guilt for doing so.

In Africa, it was Arab slave traders who sold African slaves captured for them by other Africans. The thing is -- they don't feel any guilt for this past. Not the Arabs, not the Africans who sold their brothers into slavery -- only it's doubtful they saw them as brothers but members of an enemy tribe.

Europeans were the ones who looked at slavery first as something wrong. And in Mexico, the Spaniards were assisted by certain Indian groups in bringing down the rule of the Aztecs. It wasn't so much that common myth that the Indians thought the Spaniards were gods but that they saw them as useful allies in stopping Aztec persecution of them. And why not -- when one group of people wants to capture you and drag you up a pyramid to cut out your beating heart to offer their god, and the other group is insisting that human sacrifice is wrong -- which is the sensible choice?''

I'm right there with you on that. I'm not saying the options they had were good, but the effects of European imperialism were similar at an overview by all measures. In Mexico, it was pretty much the Aztecs or the Spaniards. I don't blame them for choosing the Spaniards, but if they were to foreshadow what would happen in the future, maybe other groups (especially groups that weren't near the Aztecs) would have wanted differently (as they probably did).

White guilt isn't the healthiest way to go about it though. It's saying that one is to be responsible for their ancestor's actions. The could be somewhat true at a societal level, but not to the responsibility of an individual who was never involved. White guilt is a very accelerated form of societal measure that both us and our media have forced upon ourselves. It's good for us to liberate, but not to let it go to far either. As American citizens, our motivation and goal should be to make sure that all citizens are on the same page, especially before letting it or grooming now ones. We got too many problems that are going unattended too because of the selfish and careless interests of our government.
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Old 02-12-2008, 06:52 AM
 
Location: Mesa, Az
21,144 posts, read 42,051,952 times
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I may be (mostly) White: but; I feel no 'White guilt' for what any of my ancestors may have done----------I did not pick them.

Besides: we have some 'White Trash' whom I take grave offence to anyway........

Oh well.

What does irk me is a bunch of self described minorities crying the blues about how 'society' mistreats them. Why I say that is virtually all dysfunctional people came from messed up families to start with-----they were dealt a bad hand even before going out into the world.

Prior to WW II: 'Japanese' American kids sat side by side in the same schools in SoCal with 'Mexican' (Mestizo) American children yet the former group did so much better academically. Note that genetically speaking, Mestizos and Asians are quite close.

Racism or culture for the AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) being so much more successful; you decide.
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Old 02-12-2008, 09:33 AM
 
8,978 posts, read 16,528,595 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ArizonaBear View Post

Racism or culture for the AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) being so much more successful; you decide.
Intellectually, I want to say the differences you describe are a result of culture. But I know I'm wrong, because all of us know we're a multicultural society and all cultures are equally good in all respects....so there's no other choice, I guess, but "racism"....

Can't you ask us a less PAINFUL question ?....That HURT !!
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Old 02-12-2008, 10:21 PM
 
418 posts, read 366,062 times
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Believe me, it's not like I expect people to sit in dark rooms in depression lol I'm simply saying it's important to understood the role of your ancestors and history. In America, we're all human-beings. We all have equivalent potential. Surely, we don't pick our ancestors, nor our parent's economic or educational status, but we do choose what kind of lives we live. With the exception of people who are born into great amounts of health, poor people have no more excuse not to succeed than middle-class people. In fact, the poor should end up better because there are loads of assisting programs out there for them, where as middle-class teenagers like myself are the ones who have to pay and are societally expected at least economic mediocrity and education from.

I am ''white'' too and don't feel any ''guilt'' either. I'm rational about this though. I'm not stupid enough to label all whites as one, because we aren't one. In my opinion, if I did subject myself to feeling ''guilt'', it would be a misrepresentative and unfair to my ancestors. It's also be giving people who's ancestors were oppressed an untrue version of my ancestors. I don't buy into this ideal promoted by our media and extreme liberals. That is why I do my best to see myself as a global citizen first over an American citizen, because it allows your situation to be acknowledged more by fact than by culture. Culture is different all around the world, but facts aren't.

There are whites in this country who would fit the categorization of qualifying for being oppressed. The example I gave were Jewish people. Even though 2 percent of this country is Jewish, 7.7% of CEO's and the business world. They're even much more of the media. 1/3 of Jews in the world were killed off 70 years ago. If you were to take the American way of looking at this, you'd say well - Jews have money and are living good in this country, so how does that equate to being oppressed? Where as if you were in say Canada or Western Europe, even if they are slightly better economically than the general population, they are often giving a more ''separate'' identity from whiteness, that does indeed acknowledge the oppression their ancestors were subjected to.

The complete opposite could be said to Supermario who I was discussing something similar with on the board about the situation in the Los Angeles. I know he wasn't doing it to be politically incorrect, but rather because this is what both the American system and the media has basically promoted. That is why I tried opening up his view a little by presenting more different ways of looking at this.

Remember, oppression means put down by someone else. A man being economically behind because you optionally chose not to have education, too many kids and a women who doesn't work doesn't equate to being oppressed. It'd just sound better to say Puerto Ricans in the 1950's to 1970's generation in New York were ''oppressed'', because it makes them sound like less of losers. I agree that it wasn't all there fault because the place they came from was obviously less economically competitive, but no one was telling them they couldn't go to college and make good money. If they didn't want to be poor in this country nor immediately acquire college education, no one ever told them to move here. As far as I'm concerned, you can't qualify for ''oppressed'' if you voluntarily immigrated to this country. That's why blacks and Native Americans could claim this. Jews could from a worldwide perspective, although not on American standards.

From an international perspective, if you are of Spaniard-Puerto Rican descent, or any Spaniard Latin American descent within a Latin American country that has either significant amounts of blacks and/or Native Americans, your ancestors were the oppressive masters. That's just the how it is. There is nothing wrong with not looking down on your ancestors for this, but to say or completely ignore that your ancestors potentially owned dozens of slaves and killed off Native Americans (both physically and culturally) is completely ignorant. To those who attempt for neutralism, I could at least understand that. But how dare any Spaniard descended Puerto Rican or Dominican descendant to claim that he isn't treated fairly, when indeed he is and his ancestor's brutally oppressed others. We are one world, and from the eyes of the world, there ancestors were arguably the most oppressive white/European group to exist on both the Western Hemisphere and the globe.

The fact that Americans know so little about America and the fact we have a politically-motivated media/government destructs and disgraces history as we know it though. Just because some Americans are too unintellectual to understand that Latin America has similar multi-continent ethnic groups likewise to this country, doesn't mean that it's not true. For those who are legitimately mixed (at least one quarter of two things - i.e. Mexicans) could maybe claim it's a ''wash'', being that their ancestors were both the oppressors and oppressed.

However, for those are of Spaniard or mostly Spaniard descent can't claim they were oppressed on any part of this globe. Basically, history is history and it's best not to disrespect it because it doesn't make your every day life make sense. This problem is obviously more evident in Latin America than it does here, where many blacks and indigenous descendants are legitimately economically and educationally behind. What goes on there could stay there for all I care, but if you are to enter the United States it's a social obligation to live under both our rules and international law, which obviously they (and often us too) ignore.

''Besides: we have some 'White Trash' whom I take grave offence to anyway........''

You're right. It just doesn't sound attractive to place yourself in anything with the word trash, especially ''white trash.'' Therefore, any Latin American immigrant or descendant that doesn't work or have class who is of Spaniard or part-Spaniard descent in my eyes could legitimately qualify for ''white trash.''

As for Japanese-Americans, the fact is that they took the right parts out of their culture when they were immigrants and properly inserted it into their family values. They continued to promote education, as they did before they got here. Although Mexico is less educated than the U.S., they aren't bad for the world. However, the Mexican immigrants that usually end up in our country are both uneducated in this country and internationally. The best thing they could do is allow their children to go to school like any other American, as they will not be any different economically than any other American, unless they literally force themselves to be as financially crappy as there parents. Obviously though, that'd be the problem of one and not a group.
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Old 02-12-2008, 10:47 PM
 
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Won't get into a long dissection of your post, NYC 0127, but we did have a long discussion on culture some months ago. And it was, (and is) my contention that the US 'default' culture (a derivative of a small group of English Protestants) is fairly unique among world cultures, in that it contains the rare capacity for "societal guilt". It's one of our redeeming features, and has been a big reason why most of the abuses committed by America, have also been CORRECTED by America. In short, we as a nation, have a 'conscience'..and our society is largely 'self-correcting'. Sounds simplistic, but I maintain that's a real rarity out there in the world. MOST nations and ethnicities have committed horrible mayhem upon others, but VERY few discuss their "guilt', or admit any accountability. I'm sure you could come up with a dozen examples of this in a minute. It's simply a fact of life, we know it's how we "think", and that others don't, and we seldom even question it.

One "side effect" of our guilty conscience, though, is that it's easy and very 'satisfying' to criticize 'white America'...(as its sometimes erroneously called). Anyone can (and often DOES) criticize America for her past 'sins', real or imagined..and WE WILL LISTEN. We'll feel 'bad', we'll agree with our accusers, etc. So anyone accusing America of racism, oppression, or mistreament, is going to get a lot of 'bang for his buck'. Few people criticize China, or Russia, or Mexico, or Pakistan....because these countries will IGNORE you, and therefore criticizing them is pointless...they don't CARE if you like them or not.

That's why, as you note in your post, many people accuse "Americans" (particularly 'white Christian' Americans) of all sorts of past atrocities and racism, while failing to mention their OWN group's transgressions....America has a capacity for GUILT, while most societies do not. Criticizing THESE societies would be pointless..(in fact, many groups blame us not only for the bad things WE did, but for "making" THEM do the bad things THEY did....you name the atrocity, America either DID it, or was so 'mean, ornery, and racist' that we caused someone ELSE to do it)...
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Old 02-12-2008, 11:29 PM
 
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Creole/Hispanic mix lovelies










Creole Ladies of Lower S.E. La. (Ring Da Alarm!)
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Old 02-13-2008, 05:36 AM
 
Location: Mesa, Az
21,144 posts, read 42,051,952 times
Reputation: 3861
That lady looks like awfully 'Italian' to me
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Old 02-13-2008, 09:40 AM
 
8,978 posts, read 16,528,595 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ArizonaBear View Post
That lady looks like awfully 'Italian' to me
It's hard to believe she's even the same SPECIES as Leander Perez, let alone a close neighbor.....
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