#like???? can we fucking stop having the mindset of our homophobic grandparents

[hellaephemeral]

people need to fucking learn what queerbating is and that real people cannot do it. even celebrities. people just existing and being themselves is not queerbating.

[blusargento]

OK so i’ve seen a lot of posts about this and i’m actually really fed up with this bullshit so i thought i could make a post about this. i haven’t received any english training in over two years, so although i am still pretty fluent, this isn’t going to be the best written post on this website. if that’s going to bother you, stop reading right now.

first things first, i’m from buenos aires, argentina. there’s this misconception that argentinians are mostly european, which is incredibly false. yes, there is a large number of people with european descent, and no, we don’t have a large, say, black population. that has to do with really old history that i’m not going to get into right now, maybe some other day. 

however, our native american population is fucking gigantic. as every other ex-colonized country, we have a history of xenophobia and abuse of the people that are native to this land. you probably won’t see a lot of them in the wealthiest neighborhoods, or touristy spots. you probably won’t see a lot of famous argentinian people or recognizable politicians being anything other than really really white, but again, we are fighting against that. just like every other ex-colonized country. 

for the most part, we are divided into progressives and conservatives. sound familiar? the conservatives are really racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, classist, transphobic, you name it. the progressives aren’t perfect either. r*dical feminism has been on the rise, and the same can be said for cultural appropriation of african american culture. it’s true, and it sucks. i’m not trying to hide it. my theory for the cultural appropriation is that, because we have not had a huge black population since the 1800s, we are resistant to see them as our own. when we read about the struggles of black people in america, most white argentinians have trouble remembering that the same shit goes down here. to them, it’s seems a reality just as far away as, i dunno, hannah montana. it’s not an excuse, and black argentinians have been pushing for more representation and for people to just. fucking listen to them. i hope we do, i really do.

now, im going to talk about what i really want to talk about. i’ve seen a billion posts about how argentinians aren’t really latine. because we’re “white”, because we’re racists, because whatever. the problem with that, is that most people that are making that judgement are americans. these americans have either parents or grandparents that immigrated from latin america, and they have faced discrimination their whole lives because of it. i’m not saying that experience isn’t valid. 

HOWEVER. there is this thing with americans. they like to think of their experiences as universal. they like to think that the way race works in america should determine how the rest of the world should think of race. americans want the rest of the world to stay up to date with whatever is going on with them. if we don’t, we are terrible people who don’t care, but they never think to educate on and fight for us. it truly has never crossed their minds. and that’s okay, because why would it? why would you need to be concerned with how race is experienced in different cultures, or what atrocities have been committed by the police in other countries when you have shit to take care in your own backyard? it makes sense, doesn’t it? so why would you expect the rest of the world to keep up to date with you? to call your representatives? to know what’s okay to say and do according to yall? 

do you even realize how colonialist that mindset is? you don’t care about us, cause why would you, but we oughta care about you. what your experience has been like, what oppression feels like to you, what music and films are worthy of our time, etc, etc. 

i’ve seen so, so, so many posts claiming that argentinians aren’t latine. it makes me so mad. the only reason you think that, is because you think that the only people who get to be latine are the ones who have had the same experiences as you. who have faced the same oppression as you. isn’t that just so, so, so deeply colonialistic? because even if you are from a marginalized group, when you live in a country as powerful and colonialist as the fucking united states, you have to consider that maybe.... that mindset seeps in into your own. 

the fact is that “latine” is the name for people from latin america. if your from a third world country, you are brainwashed from day one to hate your country, to think of yourself as less than just because you weren’t born in a first world one, you are subjected to an endless cycle of economic crisis that exist because your countries exploit us just so they can stay fucking rich, the rest of the world think of you as “underdeveloped”. our culture doesn’t matter, we all are a fucking caricature of mexico. 

race, ethnic backgrounds, culture, it’s all a very complex thing. that’s why interseccional feminism exists. yes, i’m more privileged than a black argentinian, or a native argentinian. i don’t have to face sexism in the way my poor argentinian sisters have to. i’m safer than most argentinian trans folx are. but for an american to say to my face that i, a person who grew up in latin america and had to fight my own self-hatred, a person who has watched her people and country be exploited just for america to thrive, a person who recognizes that her people have been brainwashed by imperialist empires to be just as racist as them, a person who has seen america commit the sins we are being accused of.... i don’t know, man. it just seems like a fuckton of bullshit to me. 

you don’t get to determine who is latine. you don’t have that power. your experience isn’t the end all be all of what being latine constitutes. stop being a colonizing asshole.

tl;dr when american latines claim that people who’ve actually lived in latin america their whole lives aren’t latines because their experiences are different from their own... then maybe, just maybe, it reeks a little bit of colonialism.