For Black folk that didn't grow up speaking Spanish *only*:
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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 immigrationIn order to turn Argentina more white.
It worked.
@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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That would be much less bad than what really happened.
Many were forcibly drafted by the military, then sent to front lines to be canon fodder. The losses were staggering.
"In the United States…4 million are Black, and within 20 years will be 8 [million]… What is [to be] done with such Blacks, hated by the white race? Slavery is a parasite that the vegetation of English colonization has left attached to the leafy tree of freedom."
- Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, later president of Argentina.
He implemented the military drafts that sent Black soldiers to die in mass casualty events in wars like the War of the Triple Alliance. That alone was ~30,000 deaths, disproportionately Black. There were only about 70,000 total Black people in the country at the time, so only about 35,000 men and boys of all ages.
Sarmiento also implemented the intentional segregation and healthcare neglect that lead to Black mass casualty events from preventable diseases like yellow fever and cholera.
Before Sarmiento, 1 in 3 people in Buenos Aires was Black. 33%. To give you an idea of what that feels like, that's Atlanta Georgia. Today, it's 1% Black. That's Boulder, Colorado.
@mekkaokereke @mathowie as a former professor of Latin American Studies whose lane is exactly this, i cannot tell you how happy you make me by mentioning Sarmiento.
when i was doing primary research on the disputed origins of Manifest Destiny, i went down a rabbit-hole of NYC papers on the Internet Archive that made me reckon Sarmiento was in a whirlwind tour of the United States at about the same time.
i’ve always contended USA’s immigration policies been always influenced by him
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If you're having a hard time understanding how Black, Indigenous, and mixed race people could do this to themselves, take a look at the US today.
Only 20% of the US is Hispanic, but 30% of ICE is Hispanic
️Hispanic people are over-represented in the agency doing ethnic cleansing against themselves.
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There's some nuance missing here. There are two main reasons these folks work for the government.
Latine folks who work for #CBP, #ICE, etc. consider themselves #Americans, and their attitude tends to be similar to #suburban #white / #anglo #Texans; they are #legal. They are nth-generation Americans because where their ancestors lived became part of the #US — especially in #Texas #Florida, #California, #Arizona, and #NewMexico.
The other reason is that people from many South- and Central-American countries fall under the Latine/Latinx/Latino/Hispanic umbrella. Folks with Mexican heritage can totally want to deport gamg members from other Spanish-speaking countries.
It's a self-image thing. You and I and the US Census may consider them to be Latine, but they see themselves as Americans.
I'm not excusing anyone. #ACAB
This is part of the 1% agenda of creating division.
Nationalism is a mental disorder. Countries come and go. Only the Earth abides.
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If you're having a hard time understanding how Black, Indigenous, and mixed race people could do this to themselves, take a look at the US today.
Only 20% of the US is Hispanic, but 30% of ICE is Hispanic
️Hispanic people are over-represented in the agency doing ethnic cleansing against themselves.
@mekkaokereke They are operating on a mistaken idea. In Latin America, as long as you align yourself with the current government, you are safe
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@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?
Blanquemiento preceded nazi Germany.
And at the time that Blanquemiento was happening, 95% of neighbouring Brazil was Catholic.
So Blanquemiento can't be blamed on either the nazis or the Catholic church.
Blanquemiento was caused by the actions of a small number of very evil men, whose names we know.
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@mekkaokereke You're missing an a, it's "blanqueamiento".
@oantolin
Fixed! -
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
@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.
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Blanquemiento preceded nazi Germany.
And at the time that Blanquemiento was happening, 95% of neighbouring Brazil was Catholic.
So Blanquemiento can't be blamed on either the nazis or the Catholic church.
Blanquemiento was caused by the actions of a small number of very evil men, whose names we know.
@mekkaokereke does explain why the Nazis went there, though.
️ -
@mekkaokereke @mathowie as a former professor of Latin American Studies whose lane is exactly this, i cannot tell you how happy you make me by mentioning Sarmiento.
when i was doing primary research on the disputed origins of Manifest Destiny, i went down a rabbit-hole of NYC papers on the Internet Archive that made me reckon Sarmiento was in a whirlwind tour of the United States at about the same time.
i’ve always contended USA’s immigration policies been always influenced by him
@blogdiva @mekkaokereke @mathowie oh that is so interesting. Thank you.
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The US government promises "negative net migration," then celebrates when it is achieved, promises to deport 100 million people, even though there are only 40 million immigrants, and does stuff like this:
Most Americans didn't even notice that the US has stopped accepting any non-white refugees.
️"As of June, all but three of the 7,730 refugees admitted into the U.S. in fiscal 2026 were from South Africa".
https://www.notus.org/immigration/trump-deploying-refugee-officers-south-africa
(H/T Simon Marks on BlueSky for the link to the updated numbers)
"It's too late to help the poor abused slave holders from the Confederacy," Trump didn't say, "so I'm doing the next best thing."
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The silliest part of Argentinian Blanqueamiento, is that this wasn't "White people doing this to Black and Indigenous people." This was "Mixed race people doing this to themselves, because White people told them to.
"Most Argentinians are between 2% and 8% African. Just like actress Rebecca Hall.
@mekkaokereke this is my late grandfather, tell me I don't have African blood (see pic).
Every time I went to US or UK and sometimes when applying to remote positions I had to fill in a form asking for race (sorry, "ethnicity"), as if this was the XIXth century. What am I supposed to say? White? Latino? Can I say black (no, of course not)?
And don't get me started about nationality: https://en.osm.town/@mdione/116923688553896688
See also https://bolha.us/@personalescrito/116926070630965836 about the African roots of our national music.
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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
@mekkaokereke do you think their whiteness is why FIFA seems to be doing everything they can to help them win? They want all white winners at their white supremacist competition? Or should I take my tinfoil hat off now?
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What "race" is Ronda Rousey?
She didn't even know that she was 12.5% Black until DNA tests told her.
Which side of Blanqueamiento should she be on? Killer or victim?
Is Ronda Rousey Blacker or whiter than Meisha Tate? Could we even answer that without a DNA test?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WdwTOy7ZH1M
The point is:
Race isn't real. Racism is very real.The entire concept of race was just invented one day by a weird guy in Portugal (Gomes Eanes de Zurara) to justify slavery, and the whole world has been running with it ever since.
It's silly.
It would be funny if it weren't so genocidal.
@mekkaokereke Race is, in fact, a valid and useful concept in systematic biology.
“Race”, as applied to humans, is *not* an instance of that concept. It has as much scientific validity as would a categorization that divided humans, *in biological terms*, into “Wears neckties” and “Does not wear neckties”.
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@mekkaokereke @mathowie as a former professor of Latin American Studies whose lane is exactly this, i cannot tell you how happy you make me by mentioning Sarmiento.
when i was doing primary research on the disputed origins of Manifest Destiny, i went down a rabbit-hole of NYC papers on the Internet Archive that made me reckon Sarmiento was in a whirlwind tour of the United States at about the same time.
i’ve always contended USA’s immigration policies been always influenced by him
@blogdiva @mekkaokereke @mathowie
...okay, all that gives some additional context to why #PeterThiel moved to Argentina.
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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
@mekkaokereke
Paraguay => Nueva Germania
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What "race" is Ronda Rousey?
She didn't even know that she was 12.5% Black until DNA tests told her.
Which side of Blanqueamiento should she be on? Killer or victim?
Is Ronda Rousey Blacker or whiter than Meisha Tate? Could we even answer that without a DNA test?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WdwTOy7ZH1M
The point is:
Race isn't real. Racism is very real.The entire concept of race was just invented one day by a weird guy in Portugal (Gomes Eanes de Zurara) to justify slavery, and the whole world has been running with it ever since.
It's silly.
It would be funny if it weren't so genocidal.
@mekkaokereke this is the whole thing in a nutshell: race isn't real, racism is real.
Thanks for your posts! -
@mekkaokereke Race is, in fact, a valid and useful concept in systematic biology.
“Race”, as applied to humans, is *not* an instance of that concept. It has as much scientific validity as would a categorization that divided humans, *in biological terms*, into “Wears neckties” and “Does not wear neckties”.
No. Race is not a useful concept in systematic biology.
That's something that white people that don't know enough about medical racism and haven't done enough of the reading on it believe.
Again, there is more generic diversity within Africa, then between Africans and Europeans, or between Europeans or Asians. As a West African, I am genetically more distant from an East African, than I am from a white person.
White people say, "Well, their skin is all Black?' and then make decisions on data compiled on a tiny subset of Black people (mostly West Africans from Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola) to 1.5 billion people that share none of the traits.
And that's before we even get to the fact that a lot of this data from the non-representative sample, was compiled and analyzed by racists that don't care about Black people.
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@mekkaokereke Race is, in fact, a valid and useful concept in systematic biology.
“Race”, as applied to humans, is *not* an instance of that concept. It has as much scientific validity as would a categorization that divided humans, *in biological terms*, into “Wears neckties” and “Does not wear neckties”.
@marcas @mekkaokereke I am a bit surprized by your first claim (but that might be a language issue, "race" does not have the exact same frontier in French). In biology species are already more fuzzy than one would expect, and then groups inside species are even more difficult to handle; races of animals make sense for (some) *domestic* animals, and they are human-made through bread selection over thousand of years. This is very restrictive compared to the general idea of classifying the living being.
(It is by the way quite telling that some people will use the "obvious" existence of races of dogs to justify that there should be human races as well.) -
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
️@mekkaokereke the timestamp in your quoted post’s screenshot really warrants emphasis: Spot-on prediction from 2017!
Shout out to the “who could have known?
” crowd!
