latin american princesa {LAP}

• When you are about to lose your former colonies, lock them into unfair trade deals
  TRADE: Africans Stuck With EU Deals (IPS)
• Animal genocide (breaks my heart!)
  Sea lions massacred in Galapagos (BBC)
• Another way to envision the world: “plurinational”
  WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Diversity, a Birthright Waiting to Be Recognised (IPS)

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.

Continue reading My black is not your black…

“Yo, you white, girl!”

On a hot June day in a Colombian fast food joint in Queens, I expressed my preference for a mocha over a cafesito colombiano con leche.

“You a little bit kinda white.”

On another occasion, I explained I was doing research for my masters degree and what cultural anthropology was all about.

“Now Colombia has everything. Cause there’s some niggers*, charcoal niggers. … And then there’s white girls. I know some Colombian white girls. And then there’s us, tanned.”

A youth explains to me the diversity that developed in Colombia since the slaves were brought over, resulting in a mixed Colombian culture.

Continue reading Black vs. white? NO! color full societies…

I recently watched a program on Aljazeera International about Marseilles, France (available on youtube). This southern French port has a large immigrant population. In fact, the minorities outnumber the ethnic French. Marseilles is France’s New York: an immigrant port city that has undergone the majority minority transition.

Marseilles’s largest immigrant group is Muslim. The program explains that “Muslim” is used as a cultural category rather than a religious category and many French Muslims in Marseilles don’t practice. Muslim, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern: such pan-ethnic categories are growing in multicultural societies. Does this support what many see as the end of the reign of nationalism and nation-states?

Continue reading Latino and muslim pride in their adopted cities…