Post by @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io

1. You're in a thread where I specifically talked about this time period, because that is when the Blanqueamiento happened.

2. Nowhere in anything I've written did I say that the "whole country" was racist. I've said that the US is more racist than Argentina, and I don't even think that the whole of the US is racist. I don't even think that all white people in the US are racist. That's just silly.

3. Blanqueamiento was a long time ago? Argentina accepting nazi war criminals with open arms was not that long ago. Supporting fascists in Argentina or racism from Argentina players, is today.

4. Take your cope out of my mentions. I said what I said.

lord pthenq1

@pthenq1@mastodon.la 5 hours ago

@mekkaokereke
This is an Argentinian grandpa and his granddaughter.
Where is the discrimination? The racism? Go to Argentina and see for yourself.
There are no towns by race in Argentina. Everyone is integrated. And if you did not see Africans or indigenous people, it is because you never watched other cities, only Buenos Aires.

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io 4 hours ago

@pthenq1

I swear, the absolute worst "See? No racism?🤡" posts I get on this website these days, are from people trying to minimize the racism of Argentinian soccer players and politicians, or trying to pretend that Blanqueamiento didn't exist.

Don't argue with me. Argue with the father of Blanqueamiento, bragging that thanks to his policies, within 20 years, you will have to go to Brazil to see Black people. Seriously!

"De Buenos Aires en veinte años más, será preciso ir al Brasil para verlos en toda la pureza de su raza."

- Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, president of Argentina, writing in his book "Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América🤡" in which he argues that Argentina must be whitened. This is of course a famously racist book among South American nazis and racists.

"Can we completely master the savage? (...) Do not spare the blood of the gauchos, it is a contribution that must be made. Their blood is the only thing they have that is human. (...) For the Indian, we only feel a matchless hatred... Their blood is an organic element that needs to be discarded. It must be spilled; it is only useful to fertilize the earth."

- Same dude, on why Indigenous people's blood is only good for fertilizer, in an article he wrote in 1861

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, president of Argentina, and driving force behind Blanqueamiento.

lord pthenq1

@pthenq1@mastodon.la 4 hours ago

@mekkaokereke
You are talking about a politician who lived 150 years ago.
1 person does not account for a country.
Argentina has, like any other country, both good and bad politicians.

It is unfair to qualify an entire country as racist.

I showed you a picture of a very not discriminated person of African origin with her white argentinean granddaughter. He was not discriminated. He had a beautiful family that loves him.

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io 4 hours ago

@pthenq1

1. You're in a thread where I specifically talked about this time period, because that is when the Blanqueamiento happened.

3. Blanqueamiento was a long time ago? Argentina accepting nazi war criminals with open arms was not that long ago. Supporting fascists in Argentina or racism from Argentina players, is today.

4. Take your cope out of my mentions. I said what I said.

Matt Fantinel

@fantinel@hachyderm.io 6 days 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 7 days 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 7 days ago

@mekkaokereke

Oh this explains why Peter Thiel just fled to Argentina.

Graupel

@firn@scholar.social 7 days 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 last week

@mekkaokereke
Paraguay => Nueva Germania 🙄

JohnnieMac

@JohnnieMac@mastodon.scot last week

@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 last week

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

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io last week

@oantolin
Fixed!

Ruud Steltenpool

@steltenpower@social.edu.nl last week

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

Blanqueamiento - Wikipedia

mekka okereke :verified:

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io last week

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 last week

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 last week

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 last week

@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 last week

@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 last week

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

2+ more replies