The Ever Changing Construct

Recently I wrote a post about the ridiculous insanity of a "Mexican American Neo-Nazi," the writing of that very term a sheer exercise in lunacy. That said, some people to this day refuse to believe just how malleable the construct of race actually is, to them it's as clear as uhhh... black & white- despite the numerous examples throughout history proving otherwise. 

This video briefly traces the history of Italian American immigrants in the United States particularly down South, where they were basically seen and treated as another version of N-word until they were gradually redeemed and upgraded to official White status when it served a purpose. It also neglects to mention how the arrival or Puerto Ricans (my people) in the North helped boost that White privilege upon Italian Americans, just as Italians helped solidify the Irish (previously regarded as non White apes) unto their honorary White status. It always helps to have a new fall guy (traditionally just a shade darker) to hasten the ascension of the previous group of racial downtroddens. Now there are certain factions of the KKK that actually accept Italian Americans into their fold (even Ron DeSantis could join)! How do you spell "progress?" 

And so we get to the present day where even light skinned Cuban Americans who speak without accent can be effectively perceived as "White" in these United States. And the Carribean to this day remains a hotbed of racial hierarchy based on skin color and secondary 'racial' attributes. 'White' Cubans predominate the expat contingent who fled Cuba under Castro to Florida; poor, dark(er) skinned Cubans predominate those who remained on the island. Puerto Rico, the island I'm most familiar with, also maintains its colonial heritage: skin color, hair texture and other secondary 'racial' characteristics can easily come into play when considering one's social status, deliberately or unconsciously. And then there is the case of the Dominican Republic, where the majority of peoples African heritage is clearly on display; and nowhere is it clearly more in denial- because everyone knows that anyone "Black" is obviously located on the other side of that island's border in a place called... Haiti! Hey, someone's gotta hold up the bottom line if we're gonna keep this whole system up and running. 

BTW- Amazingly, it's still a very popular notion to hold up Haiti as proof positive as to how a Black run enterprise can only produce a "shit hole country" (to use official Trumpian terminology). Unfortunately, none who believe that have even the slightest, most tenuous knowledge of how Western countries (incl our own) have throughout the centuries purposely gone out of their way to repeatedly and perniciously punish Haiti into the economic, social and worldwide pariah that it remains simply because they (a colony of Black slave labor) had the audacity and ingenuity to defeat a major colonial power...