To be Argentinean means to be european or white leaving the indigenous people left out and feeling like "others". On the Ministry of Foreign Relations official website they gave ethno-racial statistics that Argentina is made up of: 85% white, 10% mestizos, and 5%aborigines and others (Sutton, 110). The author of this article mentions that there are no sources for this data. He questions where they came up with this information. It is interesting to think if they did purposely give a high percentage of white population due to the high emphasis on whiteness. The article even mentions that indigenous people born in Argentina are placed in a black or foreign category. But people in these groups don't even really know what to call themselves because there is no vocabulary word to describe what is going on in Argentina.
I believe it is interesting to compare and contrast Argentina and the U.S. when dealing with race since Argentina is known for having no racial issues. Has anyone heard anything else about Argentina that might be surprising?
Sutton, B. (2008). Contesting racism: democratic citizenship, human rights, and antiracist politics in Argentina. Latin American Perspective, (35)6.
I never knew that Argentina is a racist free country. I think is interesting that you brought up the fact that Argentina is known for not having a race issue. Since the beginning of class, we have been discussing that racism is socially constructed. Also, who is considered to be the superior one is constructed by the society. Connecting back to the concept of white privilege, the people who have the “whiteness” are categorized to be the superior one and obtain the privilege that the others don’t. Personally, I think racism exist everywhere because of cultural difference and other issues. Since I don't have much knowledge on Argentina, I think it is interesting to research more about it.
ReplyDeleteI never heard Argentina as a racist free country. That is interesting to me especially since we talk about race existing everywhere. Like YingYing is saying there has to be racism because it seems as though racism does exist everywhere. Argentina's definition of racism may be different than that of the United States. The ways that racism is done may not be as extreme or the PR done in Argentina may not want to have a bad reputation. To say that racism is non existence in Argentina I think is a complete lie. I may be just saying this because in the US there is so much racism that it is hard to believe that a country has none. Who knows.
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