Christianizing the Indians.. Good or Bad?

Originally posted by pinguin Originally posted by Mixcoatl How could we be racists if we have the same "racial" differences inside our families. By denying those differences.   I see. So, to avoid racism you have to put people in boxes, and classify them in cathegories like Nazis did in theirs concentration camps? Put here the Indians, in the middle the Mestizos, Blacks in the other side, White right here, Mulattoes on the other corner? No fellow, we are a single people, period.   Multiculturalism works better in nations that have a long tradition of racism, and that preffer people to live inside its own cathegories. And that's the way to do it in Europe and North America, not here.

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Since when do I advocate people in boxes? I believe governments should abstain completely in questions of ethnicity and identity. In fact we have had discussions about indigenous peoples several times in which I opposed labeling certain people and giving them extra or less rights because of their origin.

I don't see how pointing out that there is a lot of racism in Mexico and Latin America makes me a nazi. It is possible that things are different in Chile, but in Mexico it is common for people (usually of the elite) to deny they have Amerindian (or black for that matter) ancestors, even when they clearly have. In large parts of Latin America discrimination is still rampant, the fact that discrimination also exists in Europe or the Anglosaxon world doesn't change anything about that.

Apart from that, I don't like to be called a nazi by someone who delivers racist tirades against blacks on other fora.

Originally posted by pinguin The point is simple. From where Europeans got the authority to judge racism accross the world when they invented it and put in place accross the world during five centuries? Ending it in the apocaliptical war that was WW II?   During centuries Europeans escaped to Latin America because live in Europe was unleavable! Millons took refuge in our continent. We didn't discriminate them. We accepted everybody, includings persecuted Jews and nazis as well!   In our continent, meanwhile, people mixed.   Yes, it is true that some elites of European immigrants brought with them same degree of theirs European racism. It is also true they were middle class people and enterpreneurs that ended in the elite. Some of theirs descendents still pretend to be "full" Europeans. We know better and know it is false.   The great drama of Latin America has been the fighting between rich and poors. But those fights haven't being in here along racial lines, like in the U.S., South Africa or Europe. I wonder when the gypsies are going to be considered Europeans in Europe, for instance.   So, how come Europe now pray equality? On which moral grounds?

So I have no right to speak because I am European? What a logical fallacy. If you don't want other people to speak about Latin American then don't go to an international forum. And I, contrary to you, never tried to deny or justify shortcomings of my country and continent.

But now we have started using tu quoques, if I'm not allowed to talk about racism in Latin America why are you allowed to speak about immigration in Europe? Or about how many children Europeans have? Or about British 'crimes'?

Claiming that Europeans invented racism is so preposterous I won't even try to argue against it.

Originally posted by pinguin   (1) For racism to exist, there must be two groups isolated genetically were you can point any citizen and able to clasify into one group or the other. That happens in the U.S. and in many other places. In Latin America it is impossible. There are rich people that look Indian and poors that look White. Besides, all people live together and marry to whom they wishes.

I don't believe that is true. Racism more often than not has no basis in reality. Just think of the discrimination against the Irish in England or the United States in the 19th century; Englishmen and were in no way genetically isolated from the Irish yet there was a lot of racism. I think it even counts for the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany: there are many examples known of people who didn't even know they were Jewish until the moment they were rounded up. Also there were the Israeli neonazis that were arrested recently, or the Balkan wars in the 1990's. All examples of racism based on invented rather than real differences

There are also many examples of people who were racist against a certain ethnicity of they themselves partly descended. Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic, for example was known to be racist against anything that wasn't pale white and killed about 15.000 Haitians, even though his mother was Haitian. He used whatever powder or cream he could find to make himself appear whiter than he actually was. Another example is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a rightwing extremist and extremely antisemtic Russian politician, who is part Jewish. In a certain sense you can also add Porfirio D�az to this list, who wanted the Mexican Indians to drop their own customs and language and adopt the western culture, even though he himself was half Mixtec.

I think we can safely say racism can and in fact does very often exist when there are no real ethnic (or 'genetical') differences and that people can be racist against ethnicities they themselves belong to.

(2) In Latin America exists some important minorities that are divided ethnically (not racially, please get the difference) from the rest. The most important of those minorities are the Indigenous peoples. Now, in Latin America to be indigenous you have to speak a Indigenous language and live in an Indigenous culture. So we are not talking about genetics on here (many indigenous have admixture and many "mainstreamers" have indigenous blood, too). Indigenous people are indeed discriminated, but the main discriminators are the poors of the "mainstream" with which they are mainly in contact.   Now, in Latin America there is a great divide by class. In Latin America, family, money and education is more important than anything else, color of skin included. The divisions by class between the fraction of sociate are very deep, and in many cases are the origin of riots and widespread violence that is felt in cities.    Now, before you jump out with the racism, I have to explain that in many countries the poors and even the criminals are not much different from the rich, except by some recent European immigrants that live in the upper class. People that got an education, and (better) that got money, won't have any problem to break any social barrier in Latin America.

I agree with that, but I don't see how it proves there is no racism in Latin America. I think in fact in the eyes of many racists poverty is equated with being indigenous (and hence the denial of indigenous heritage: "we aren't poor, so we don't have any indigenous ancestors). Of course that means that this racism is based on imaginary rather than real differences, but then so is most racism and it doesn't make the racists any less racist.

Racism (as I understand) is the discrimination based on genetics.

That's too narrow a definition IMO. I don't even believe there are genetic differences between races, so from my point of view being racist would be impossible.

5 & 6 are the same IMO

something that is forced never can be good