Post by @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io

For Black folk that didn't grow up speaking Spanish *only*:

Question:
* Why don't the other South American fans like Argentina?

* Why do so many of the good and kind players and fans from Argentina ♥️🕊️make such a big point of being vocally anti-racist?

* Why did nazis choose Argentina?

* Why do most countries in South America have people that are Black, white, indigenous, and mixed, but Argentina (and Uruguay) seem super white?

Answer:

Blanqueamiento.

History tends to only talk about the ethnic cleansing campaigns that *almost* worked. It skips over ones that *did* work

47 Replies

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Matt Fantinel

@fantinel@hachyderm.io 4 hours ago

@mekkaokereke the Brazilian empire tried a similar thing in the South, which is why there are many German and Italian descendants there (like me), who were sent over to colonize some parts of the land that were still untamed (even though there was a lot of black people already in Brazil who needed land)

It was (afaik) a much smaller effort, fortunately, and today there’s a fair amount of ethnic diversity in those places (even if less than the rest of the country)

Nate Allen

@mossyfoot@pdx.social 9 hours ago

@mekkaokereke I work in a Latino workplace and I was shocked that my coworkers were rooting for England, but they gently explained it to me.

CaliCarol

@jawarajabbi@mastodon.online 9 hours ago

@mekkaokereke

Oh this explains why Peter Thiel just fled to Argentina.

Graupel

@firn@scholar.social 12 hours ago

@mekkaokereke Thank you for this thread. It explains several things I have been wondering about and had not yet found the answer for. Appreciate it!

GrosseFatigue ⏚

@Superspindoctor@mamot.fr 17 hours ago

@mekkaokereke
Paraguay => Nueva Germania 🙄

JohnnieMac

@JohnnieMac@mastodon.scot 23 hours ago

@mekkaokereke Thank you for sharing. It is by learning about these injustices that we can recognize new ones and work together to not let them take root in our communities.

Omar Antolín

@oantolin@mathstodon.xyz yesterday

@mekkaokereke You're missing an a, it's "blanqueamiento".

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io 23 hours ago

@oantolin
Fixed!

Ruud Steltenpool

@steltenpower@social.edu.nl yesterday

@mekkaokereke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanqueamiento

Blanqueamiento - Wikipedia

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io yesterday

Look up what Argentina's Blanqueamiento policies were, to understand the context of why soccer games between Argentina and Brazil, have so much subtext.

And why good Argentinian players and fans make this face when one of their players does a racism.

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io yesterday

And lest you think I'm judging Argentina and saying that their country is bad, and the US is good,

Blanqueamiento was mainly 1860 to 1914. Most Argentinians today that know about Blanqueamiento, say it was horrific.♥️🕊️

By contrast, the Alt-Right was founded to do US Blanqueamiento, right now.🤡

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io yesterday

Blanqueamiento (rough translation, whitening), was a set of policies intentionally designed to:

* Increase the Black + indigenous death rate
* Decrease the Black + indigenous birth rate
* Eliminate non-white immigration
* Increase white immigration

In order to turn Argentina more white.

It worked.

4 media

Deep Mud

@deepmud@mas.to yesterday

@mekkaokereke don't let's forget that the Catholic Church helped a whole bunch of Nazis escape to argentina. And is it really silly to suggest it caused this?

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Katerina Marchán

@zkat@fedi.zkat.tech yesterday

@mekkaokereke Cuba and Puerto Rico did the same thing starting 1815 until the US took over, with the Real Cédula de Gracias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Decree_of_Graces_of_1815

It’s why PR folks are often relatively white and has a lot to do with why Afro-boricuas are de-emphasized/erased from our past and present.

Conversely: Cuba ended up being very Black after the revolution because so many of the white people, who were often plantation owners, fled to Miami (and why Miami Cubans are… well, how they are)

Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 - Wikipedia

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io yesterday

You don't have to wonder what it was like living under Argentinian Blanqueamiento.

If you are in the US, you are living through a Blanqueamiento period right now.

A white nationalist wrote the US Blanqueamiento policies, and called his organization "The Alt-Right."

Most white Americans voted for it🤷🏿‍♂️

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112440450555443222

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