Education has truly failed most of the world at this point, I’m convinced.
Just a “quick reminder” when someone says they have Cuban heritage:
“Cuban” isn’t a race, ethnic group or… really descriptive of anything about a person. Everyone there or their families “from Cuba” are a mixture of the indigenous people who inhabited it first, Spanish, Africans, various other European ethnicities. It’s similar to Mexico. A lot of (racist) white Americans (mostly) think they’re all brown-skinned. Sure, a lot of people do have brown skin. There’s also a lot of white and black people. Turns out, big surprise, the Americas were colonized by white Europeans who later imported African slaves and all these peoples had sex and babies for hundreds of years leading to the current ethnic breakdowns within the nations.
So what’s my point? Well, the people who say “actually! I’m Cuban-American! (or insert whatever)” are often the whitest motherfuckers on earth LARPing around as brown skinned people when it’s convenient for them to say some dumbass, usually racist shit and attempt to avoid criticism under the general racist view of Americans (again, usually. There’s a huge Cuban exile population in this country) that “well, he’s Cuban! He gets to say dumb, racist shit directed towards Central/South Americans even though his skin looks just like mine…”
Example 1 and only example: Recently Sen Menendez said he was being targeted because he’s a Cuban-American. Ok, next time some guy with grandparents from Ireland gets criticized, hopefully he says that too. Or some white guy with grandparents from, I dunno, Bosnia i Herzegovina. People would correctly laugh their asses off, and I think most did at ol’ Bob here, but he still tried. And it happens a lot with those dumbass white people with a Cuban ancestor somewhere.
The actually important thing that they never talk about (odd how being Cuban, a country shat upon for 60 years by the US for no actual reason, is treated as “EVERYONE SHUT UP WHITE BOB FROM CUBA BUT NOT REALLY IS TALKING STFU”) is skin color and it’s historical and modern ramifications. See, this gets rather hard to deal with quickly.
“Castro was a dictator!”
That’s easy to deal with. “You’re Cuban and here now? Oh, you or your family suffered and I’ll pretend your white skin is brown. Please speak! Anyone who questions you is a racist!”
“My ancestors were systematically enslaved and treated like property for hundreds of years and were never given a single ounce of reparations for their labor.”
Yikes. Gonna have to sidestep that one. “But you’re American! Stfu! You had all this opportunity! Be grateful! Look at Cuban White Bob! He’s a senator!”
You see, conveniently, race and nationality are just these ethereal things that we can pull into reality or dismiss at will as they benefit us. The US treated (and treats!) Cuba, as a state, as an island nation, horrifically. So anyone from there (kids, grandchildren included) gets elevated or treated as if they are Cuban as an ethnic identity or race. Anyone who disagrees, well, Castro brainwashed them!
On the same point, any black people (especially) or brown people are treated according to their skin color first and the nationality comes into play only if they agree with the general racist, right wing, American vibes. If you’re a black Cuban-American well, first, do you even exist (the racist whites would wonder)? And secondly, well, you better agree that Castro was basically Hitler Jr. or you’ll quickly drop that extra Cuban identity and be back to just black in their eyes.
Oh you’re a white guy from Honduras who wants to talk about how US policy wasn’t so bad and it was actually your own corrupt country men who fucked things? Give that guy, that Honduran-American!, a mic IMMEDIATELY! Oh you don’t support American policies and you’re looking a little… not so white? “Where were you from again? Mexico? El Salvador? Honduras? The fuck is that? Hey, so, anyway, sorry your country sucks. Bet you’re grateful to he here. Right? Right?!”
Anyway, I don’t think I need to keep going on about how stupid-as-fuck American’s conception of “Hispanics” is. Hopefully not anyway. And I really hope I don’t need to expand on how white Cuban-Americans opining on Castro being Hitler is quite literally dogshit. The words could be printed on toilet paper and wipe my shit covered asshole and still not represent how worthless and disgusting they are. And to do it all behind a nebulous, meaningless nationality represented as a race/ethnic group is the cherry on top of a mound of shit covered in the aforementioned toilet paper.
If any of this sounds angry or whatever, good, because it is. I fucking despise right wing, almost always white, assholes from countries south of the US which have been historically colonized and then absolutely assfucked by US imperialism. If you can come from that environment as a privileged fuckwad and end up endorsing the continuation of the same policies in the same places once you get to push the button you can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. And doing it behind some made-up idea of “but my name is Ramirez! So what if I’m pasty white!” is extra disrespectful to everyone on an intellectual level (yet it does somehow keep working) and disgusting on a human level.
Education has truly failed most of the world at this point, I’m convinced.
Just a “quick reminder” when someone says they have Cuban heritage:
“Cuban” isn’t a race, ethnic group or… really descriptive of anything about a person. Everyone there or their families “from Cuba” are a mixture of the indigenous people who inhabited it first, Spanish, Africans, various other European ethnicities. It’s similar to Mexico. A lot of (racist) white Americans (mostly) think they’re all brown-skinned. Sure, a lot of people do have brown skin. There’s also a lot of white and black people. Turns out, big surprise, the Americas were colonized by white Europeans who later imported African slaves and all these peoples had sex and babies for hundreds of years leading to the current ethnic breakdowns within the nations.
So what’s my point? Well, the people who say “actually! I’m Cuban-American! (or insert whatever)” are often the whitest motherfuckers on earth LARPing around as brown skinned people when it’s convenient for them to say some dumbass, usually racist shit and attempt to avoid criticism under the general racist view of Americans (again, usually. There’s a huge Cuban exile population in this country) that “well, he’s Cuban! He gets to say dumb, racist shit directed towards Central/South Americans even though his skin looks just like mine…”
Example 1 and only example: Recently Sen Menendez said he was being targeted because he’s a Cuban-American. Ok, next time some guy with grandparents from Ireland gets criticized, hopefully he says that too. Or some white guy with grandparents from, I dunno, Bosnia i Herzegovina. People would correctly laugh their asses off, and I think most did at ol’ Bob here, but he still tried. And it happens a lot with those dumbass white people with a Cuban ancestor somewhere.
The actually important thing that they never talk about (odd how being Cuban, a country shat upon for 60 years by the US for no actual reason, is treated as “EVERYONE SHUT UP WHITE BOB FROM CUBA BUT NOT REALLY IS TALKING STFU”) is skin color and it’s historical and modern ramifications. See, this gets rather hard to deal with quickly.
“Castro was a dictator!”
That’s easy to deal with. “You’re Cuban and here now? Oh, you or your family suffered and I’ll pretend your white skin is brown. Please speak! Anyone who questions you is a racist!”
“My ancestors were systematically enslaved and treated like property for hundreds of years and were never given a single ounce of reparations for their labor.”
Yikes. Gonna have to sidestep that one. “But you’re American! Stfu! You had all this opportunity! Be grateful! Look at Cuban White Bob! He’s a senator!”
You see, conveniently, race and nationality are just these ethereal things that we can pull into reality or dismiss at will as they benefit us. The US treated (and treats!) Cuba, as a state, as an island nation, horrifically. So anyone from there (kids, grandchildren included) gets elevated or treated as if they are Cuban as an ethnic identity or race. Anyone who disagrees, well, Castro brainwashed them!
On the same point, any black people (especially) or brown people are treated according to their skin color first and the nationality comes into play only if they agree with the general racist, right wing, American vibes. If you’re a black Cuban-American well, first, do you even exist (the racist whites would wonder)? And secondly, well, you better agree that Castro was basically Hitler Jr. or you’ll quickly drop that extra Cuban identity and be back to just black in their eyes.
Oh you’re a white guy from Honduras who wants to talk about how US policy wasn’t so bad and it was actually your own corrupt country men who fucked things? Give that guy, that Honduran-American!, a mic IMMEDIATELY! Oh you don’t support American policies and you’re looking a little… not so white? “Where were you from again? Mexico? El Salvador? Honduras? The fuck is that? Hey, so, anyway, sorry your country sucks. Bet you’re grateful to he here. Right? Right?!”
Anyway, I don’t think I need to keep going on about how stupid-as-fuck American’s conception of “Hispanics” is. Hopefully not anyway. And I really hope I don’t need to expand on how white Cuban-Americans opining on Castro being Hitler is quite literally dogshit. The words could be printed on toilet paper and wipe my shit covered asshole and still not represent how worthless and disgusting they are. And to do it all behind a nebulous, meaningless nationality represented as a race/ethnic group is the cherry on top of a mound of shit covered in the aforementioned toilet paper.
If any of this sounds angry or whatever, good, because it is. I fucking despise right wing, almost always white, assholes from countries south of the US which have been historically colonized and then absolutely assfucked by US imperialism. If you can come from that environment as a privileged fuckwad and end up endorsing the continuation of the same policies in the same places once you get to push the button you can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. And doing it behind some made-up idea of “but my name is Ramirez! So what if I’m pasty white!” is extra disrespectful to everyone on an intellectual level (yet it does somehow keep working) and disgusting on a human level.