I rolled over here from tinycatpants and will immediately blogroll you after only checking a couple posts.

hey, you've got to tell me how you fit into those pants, man! but either way, gracias for blogrolling...i'll definitely be by to check you out, gotta mow the lawn now. :)

I had similar experiences, among my Mexicans or sometimes Mexican and White friends, they would crack racist jokes about blacks, and among my black friends, they would crack racist jokes about whites. I always felt uncomfortable, but never had the courage to speak up in defense of others.

What does that make me?

well...that makes you a person relating a different situation.

do you have memories of people insulting puerto ricans when you were younger? and how that felt? and the pressure on you to swallow it or stand up? do you have ejemplos of times you received or recognized white supremacy, even when shaped as a gift or not seen as a harm by those who practiced it?

that is what this is about.

I wished I was a middle-class white boy as a kid, and I prided myself on not speaking with the bama-drawl vernacular of my parents and extended family. I also rejected Black Christianity as ignorant superstition, which fit right in to the general hostility to theocratic religion among my leftist peers. And until just a year ago, my closest friendships were all with hetero white men.

I tolerated the snide, smug racism of enlightened white leftists, especially "radical" queers and feminists. Rarely were racist slurs or jokes uttered in my presence, but the same arrogant superiority was always there. And I said nothing.

Ah yes, not "that kind of Mexican". If I had a dime for every time...I'd be one rich "not that kind of Mexican" Mexican. This attitude is especially prevalent online. As a webgeek and podcaster, people are always saying things like that as compliments and I am always explaining that such phrases simply show that that they hold some kind of stereotyped assumptions about what a Mexican is. Yeah, some of us are on the local street corners trying to find construction work and others of us are also online being snarky and picking fights with Whiteprogressives. And others are something in between, just like them.

hilarious.

y verdad.

this is really well said.

it makes me think a lot about disability issues in my own life, and how I've always been able to pass-ish as almost not one of those crips, and how I THOUGHT this benefited me

but it didn't.

it meant seeing myself as they saw me: almost a person.

it mean not hearing my people's stories. pretending what happened to my people didn't matter to me.

because I felt like "half and half" or something.

it took me a while to realize: i felt that way because that's how they saw me and they were most comfortable with me helping to trample my people right there with them. "I AM NOT LIKE THEM."

fuck that. fuck assimilation if that's what it means.

perfect analogy, trin. that's just what i'm saying.

Well I can say that every time I turned on the television or went to class and was told that I lived in a tiny little inconsequential island, that I owed my very existence to the benevolent white Americans who had saved us from despair and poverty. Every time people around me disparage their own language and tradition and spit down on others for been Puerto Rican and saying "well over there people are better, they are richer and behave better, not like Puerto Ricans". What hurts the most I guess is that at times, to many times I agreed while not realizing that those who said and believed those things where mired in self-loathing and dreams of Imperial grandeur.

Its a feeling a lot of us feel, it can be best summoned up in the lyrics from this song (in Spanish of course and something I quoted before). Imagine an entire nation viewing itself through an alien white lens?

Salimos de una grieta
de una calle cercana
desde entonces dormimos
dando vueltas en la cama
Salimos del pedazo de cielo

que pudre las manzanas...

Salimos del baile, la botella
y la baraja...
Salimos de un sueño,
un sueño de agua salada...

Salimos del Yunque y de los ríos
y del Combate y del picadillo
y del fanatismo a los partidos
y a la iglesia y al bolsillo...

Salimos de un pozo
donde ya no queda agua...
Salimos de un pueblo
que en silencio se le ama...
Salimos de donde se reunen
todas las caravanas...

Salimos de un monte
con cadillos en los pies...
Salimos de un bosque de azucar y café...
Salimos de centro y del calor y del machismo
y del amor al conformismo
y del culantro y del sartén
y de una ola que se corre alrevéz...

Salimos de aquí
de la orilla del cámino...
Salimos de aquí
de un paraiso pérdido...
Salimos de aquí
de la perla privilegiada
de la sombra asociada
de la envidia caribeña
y de la estupidez isleña
de sentirse en menosprecio
por ser de aquí...

Y así salimos descalzos
y así aprendimos sin querer
a comernos las "s" cuando hablamos
y eso es to' lo que hay que saber
Somos los que cantan con la lengua amarrada
Somos los que alternan Coca-Cola con Maví
Somos de la tribu que se pierde en su pais

Mirando la vida por el retrovisor
de cantazo en cantazo
aprendiendo con sabor
Y no creemos en diccionarios
ni en panfletos de la fé
ni en los dichosos patriotismos
de las copas elevados y los
brindis de chalet...

Salimos de aquí...
eso no es de donde quiera
Salimos de aquí...
te lo digo sin problemas
Salimos de aquí...
de la playa enamorada
de los campos de batalla
y de las casas de cemento
y que se caigan los lamentos
que se escucha por aquí...

...vivir pa' sobrevivir...
...vivir pa' sobrevivir...
...vivir pa' sobrevivir...
...vivir pa' sobrevivir...

Salimos del beso
de una diosa olvidada
Salimos de un volcán
al que no le queda lava
Salimos de pensar
de que ya aquí no queda nada...

Salimos de madrugada
de una cuna reciclada
recitando oraciones
que aprendimos sin opciones
y hoy regresan en canciones
en saludos y discuciones
en las miradas de tu cara
y en la forma en que te paras
y hoy toda la brisa
sabe a Puerto Rico...

I wished I was a middle-class white boy as a kid, and I prided myself on not speaking with the bama-drawl vernacular of my parents and extended family. I also rejected Black Christianity as ignorant superstition, which fit right in to the general hostility to theocratic religion among my leftist peers. And until just a year ago, my closest friendships were all with hetero white men.

I tolerated the snide, smug racism of enlightened white leftists, especially "radical" queers and feminists. Rarely were racist slurs or jokes uttered in my presence, but the same arrogant superiority was always there. And I said nothing.

Word, Yolanda. I never quite got around to the rejecting religion bit, but I certainly kept my mouth shut when people talked down on it. What else do you do at a white school with the motto "Atheism, Communism, Free Love?"

I got better, eventually. Mostly.

When I was really little, my dad had this coworker who used to call him up on Pearl Harbor day. My dad was mad about this at first (my family's Japanese American). Then later he found it "funny." My mom got really mad at him and said "What, do you think if you laugh at this joke it makes you one of them?"

I don't know if it got through to my dad, but I'll always remember it myself.

that's some strong stuff, lovelesscynic.

the "kindest" supremacists are often the most venomous.

Nezua, you are a credit to your people ;-)

As an African-American growing up in a white area, I had similar experiences except I always rejected their honorary status because I still knew I was implicated. It's weird though because I used to always explain my high school experience saying that I was the only black kid in the school district. Then, I started to remember that I also spent those years (only 3 years removed from them) with a Native American, three Mexicans, and one half white half Argentinian student. They accepted their honorary white status though and never really felt like minorities or potential allies to me. It's really strange and disturbing to think about that now as I'm actively involved in building coalitions to fight for diversity across color lines. Sometimes, I wonder if these "honorary white" statuses can operate in our decisionmaking and stations (jobs, schools, etc.) as well, not just interpersonal relationships.