latin american princesa {LAP}

Via no snow here I found a fascinating article that helps me illustrate the importance of context to race, ethnicity and discrimination. It is also a good opportunity to introduce the black-white continuum* and the importance of recognizing (shades of) diversity on a greater scale.

In Arabs and the Racial Lessons of 9/11 Carol Chehade discusses the relationship between Arab Americans and African Americans in the U.S.

Profiled, feared, detained, assaulted, accused, interrogated, harassed, hated, and collectivized since 9-11, Arab Americans have suddenly known what it feels like to be temporarily Black.

This is no secret to Black people who already know that Arab Americans have the same type of superiority complex that European Americans do. This superiority complex is not only evident in the way we act toward Black people but in the way we choose to disassociate ourselves from their community.

The real irony is that while Arab Americans are struggling with their recent “downgrade” on the black-white continuum. Muslims (as the group is labeled in Europe) are in a way Europe’s “blacks”. In The Netherlands, one major discussion in Amsterdam centers around “black” versus “white” schools. Not surprisingly, “black” schools are the ones with a high minority population, poor ratings and poor test results.

While the Netherlands has it share of minorities—Surinamese, Antilleans, Indonesians and others—the Muslim community is perceived as the biggest “problem” group. The Muslim community? As if they are all one homogeneous entity. Moroccans and Turks are the largest communities and each is unique in its history, ethnic background, religious tradition, immigration experience and more (Iranians, Iraqis, Somalis, Nigerians and many others are here too). And while much discussion denigrates “The Muslims,” the “The Moroccans” are often singled out as the worst group.

What has fascinated me since I arrived in this country 4 years ago is how media portrayals and general comments (public and private) about “The Moroccans” and “The Turks” parallel and in some case almost reiterate the African American and Hispanic experiences in the U.S. Black is the bottom of the totem pole in the U.S., while brown is only slightly above black in value. The Moroccans are the African Americans and the Hispanics are the Turks (discriminated but not as bad as the blacks). Now please don’t take this as an exact comparison. I do not mean to say that the experiences and circumstances are exactly the same. Rather it is a comparison of general position within society.** My goal is to illustrate the importance of context in discrimination and social constructions.

Groups, are assigned certain roles in the societies they occupy, with the dominant, hegemonic group imposing subservient roles in order to maintain their own supremacy. The interaction (discrimination, subordination) between the groups will of course vary by country, because it is also context-specific. This is why it is so difficult to say the U.S. is more racist than Europe or vice versus or anything to that effect.

Like black and latino urban youth, second and third generation Dutch-Moroccan youth have appropriated hip-hop and rap (developing Maroc-hop), resisting the similar contextual space in society that they inhabit.***

What is necessary is to start breaking down the suffocating grip that the black-white dichotomy has on many of our societies, to stop seeing the world in black and white. And to begin to see the broad range of “colors”. I argue that even gender cannot be limited to a dichotomy, but can also be placed on a long and diverse continuum.

This “shaded” thinking and approach will probably make the task of fighting social inequalities, poverty and violence more complex, but I think it will provide the means for better addressing the various issues behind different problems. Problems are complex. We need more complex solutions.

Is There Apartheid in Brazil? Racial Identity and Racism From a Brazilian Point of View discusses shades of race in Brazil, in response to another article questioning the validity of “Ameri-centric” views on race, We Want You. . . To Think Just Like Us.

*In my thesis I developed a multi-dimensional model of identification made up of three continua: black-white, ethnicity and class. I used the concept of continuum to illustrate that each of these categories are actually made up of broad spectra, rather than just being defined as two separate and distinct groups, as in the Cartesian legacy of dichotomous thinking.

**Black has traditionally been the bottom of U.S. society and generally, black Hispanics fare worse than white Hispanics. However, statistically as a whole Hispanic Americans are actually worse off than African Americans when comparing socioeconomic indicators (i.e. drop out rates, teen pregnancy, number living in poverty). The “model minority” view of Asian Americans places them higher in some aspects, but this label is misleading and masks other issues. It is a rather daunting task to fully classify all minorities, placing them all on a ladder or pyramid. I doubt any one classification will be applicable in all situations anyway. Furthermore, these larger labels mask the issue of huge diversity within the groups. I will address this further in other posts, but my focus here is to introduce the importance of context and challenge the black-white dichotomy.

***Gazzah 2005. “Maroc-hop: Music and Youth Identities”. ISIM Review 16 (Autumn). Available as PDF