Current Events > I still don't understand why 'Latin' as a race is a thing in the USA

(+) Yeah! (+)

Please explain to a confused european person
I remember watching a show when I was a kid and one of the Latin people brought up the fact he was being bullied for being Hispanic and I had no idea it was even a thing cause the kid was fully American accented

Mostly racism.

This is the country that deemed white as snow people not white enough.

I remember this old lady told me she didn't speak Spanish when I asked her for directions in English.

I wasn't upset or anything but I did need those directions cause I was hella lost fam.

BloodMoon7 posted...

I remember this old lady told me she didn't speak Spanish when I asked her for directions in English.

I wasn't upset or anything but I did need those directions cause I was hella lost fam.

what

catfan2008 posted...

what

Nani?!

BloodMoon7 posted...

Nani?!

Isn't that Japanese

I still don't understand
so you asked her in English and she thought you only spoke Spanish

To this day it is a big mystery to me

catfan2008 posted...

To this day it is a big mystery to me

Tbh sounds like she has dementia and was genuinely confused losing her grasp on language. She actually didn't understand and assumed you were speaking spanish.

Maybe I'm being too generous idk.

If the Romans were transported into the present day would they be considered Latin?

Something that really opened my eyes on how race is socially constructed is learning in college how Brazil categorizes race and ethnicity:

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), which has conducted censuses in Brazil since 1940, racially classifies the Brazilian population in five categories: Branco (White), "Pardo" (Multiracial), Preto (Black), Amarelo/Asitico (Yellow/Asian), and Indgena (Indigenous). As in international practice, individuals are asked to self identify within these categories.
...
As the IBGE itself acknowledges, these categories are disputed, and most of the population dislike it and do not identify with them.: 1 Most Brazilians see "Indgena" as a cultural rather than racial term, and don't identify as such if they are part of the mainstream Brazilian culture; many Brazilians would prefer to self-describe as "morenos" (used in the sense of "tanned" or "brunettes"); some Black and parda people, more identified with the Brazilian Black movement, would prefer to self-describe as "Negro" as an inclusive category containing pardos and pretos;: 2 and if allowed to choose any classification, Brazilians will give almost 200 different answers.: 4

According to the American scholar Edward Telles, in Brazil there are three different systems related to "racial classification" along the White-Black continuum.: 8081 The first is the Census System, which distinguishes three categories: "branco" (White), "pardo", and "preto" (Black).: 81 The second is the popular system that uses many different categories, including the ambiguous term "moreno": 82 ("tanned", "brunette", or "with an olive complexion"). The third is the Black movement system that distinguishes only two categories, summing up "pardos" and "pretos" as "negros". More recently, the term "afrodescendente" has been brought into use.

It's not that genetics works any differently there, but they talk about it on wildly different terms than the ones we take for granted in the US

Gotta assign a race for all non-Europeans.

TC are you brutal

Antifar posted...

Something that really opened my eyes on how race is socially constructed is learning in college how Brazil categorizes race and ethnicity:

It's not that genetics works any differently there, but they talk about it on wildly different terms than the ones we take for granted in the US

You should read the perception of race in the 20th century. I read a really good thread on r/askhistorians on how Finnish people were at one point categorized as "mongoloids". Concepts of race has always been tied to power and rights and as a means of "othering" people based off arbritary measures like physical traits or even cultural traits.

VeggetaX posted...

TC are you brutal

ew no. I'm guessing he's in jail

HannibalBarca3 posted...

You should read the perception of race in the 20th century. I read a really good thread on r/askhistorians on how Finnish people were at one point categorized as "mongoloids". Concepts of race has always been tied to power and rights and as a means of "othering" people based off arbritary measures like physical traits or even cultural traits.

Race on a social level is definitely just 'made up'. Eventually we can probably trace every human back to a definiteive category like we can do with breeds of animals