Clever girl!

One of my officemates just asked, “I thought you were Hispanic?” apparently because the other day she asked if I speak Spanish & I told her no. So we had a conversation about how I ID as Xicano & some of the reasons for it &…yeah. it seemed awkward, but maybe just because I used the word “Colonisers” & said that ‘Hispanic’ was made up by the US government & doesn’t actually have anything to do w/my ethnic heritage.

milkeemountainmama:

so—the question: why would he call himself this instead of “hispanic” or (god forbid) latino or “country of origin”-american?

honestly, when i very first saw the picture, my breath was gone, this guy looks like half of my damn latino family. i immediately thought he’s ‘hispanic’—but now i qualify it and say—*if* he doesn’t identify as white.

but—the response of white folks to it being announced he’s a “spanish speaking minority” has been so infuriating—because they honestly can’t see that what they are saying and how they are saying it is invisibilizing THEIR OWN VIOLENCE—but also that in distancing themselves (IT WASN’T US), they are *protecting* white supremacy—they are using the strategy of making the “problem” be about out of control animals fighting amongst themselves—rather than *white supremacy*, *white nationalism*, *white heteropatriarchy*.

and you see this in the possible reason that Zimmerman would *choose* to call himself “spanish speaking minority.”

he is sitting on the crux of his *own* prison pipeline, in the form of ICE built detention centers—his lawyers must surely KNOW this. they need him to be white *enough*—such that the (white supremacist) state of florida does not divest itself from protecting him.

and why would it divest itself? think of florida’s thriving reputation as a resting spot for *tired white northern liberals* who need a place to retire. florida has its *economy* tied up in being that resting spot—and if things start to get messy—if white people start to feel uncomfortable—where if they say “i’m living in florida now” to their friends and they no longer get sighs of envy, but standoffish questions (why on *earth* would you settle there?)—white people will economically divest themselves from Florida. And Florida’s economy will not be pretty.  Florida *depends* on appealing to white liberal reformists—but as infuriating as they are—white liberal reformists *can* actually see the connections between KKK lynching of yesteryear and the modern day form its shaped into.

So—if Zimmerman *becomes hispanic*—where there is already a pipeline built to get him easily out of the way—*florida will do it*—and they’ll have the added benefit of doing it to the applause of outraged white liberal reformists. Florida doesn’t need the problem he is creating. individuals are *always* easily sacrificed to protect “the greater good.”

so zimmerman’s lawyers *need* him to be white—but not quite. they *also* need him to not be a racist. because what’s worse than being a murderer (as we’ve seen, even right here on tumblr)? being called a racist. if he’s a racist, it won’t matter if he’s white. liberal white reformists can spot hateful racists too. they can’t see those racists when they’re wrapped up in a business suit, but they sure the fuck can see them if they have tattoos and have confederate flags and whsiper fucking **** at a kid before they shoot him.

what to do? what to do? what to do? zimmerman is the physical emobiement of what it means to exist in multiple categories in this country. even as light skinned as he is, people are SURE he has physical characteristics that mark him as “really” non-white. zimmerman has a “choice” in how he identifies, but that choice just in this conversation alone is constantly taken away, talked over, not respected, or assumed. the “choice” he has is also structurally enforced—he doesn’t get the choice to *NOT* make a choice. he *has* to be *something*—because if he wants resources, *that choice is how he’s going to get them*. but if even as he thinks he has a choice to “make the right choice”—to side with white supremacy—White supremacy has *already dumped him*. Even after white supremacy promised him—if you assimilate, we won’t *care* where you came from or who you are. If you’re legal and you do it the right way, we don’t *care*.

but white supremacy is showing its face—it really *does* care, and it never stopped noticing the way his skin was *exactly* white and it never stopped noticing who his mother was and it never stopped noticing his black hair or the way his tongue rolled in spite of itself.

Which means, fellow Latin@s, Chican@s, Mexican@s, and even “hispanics”…that right now, the point is NOT “don’t let them divide us.”

the point is to understand *properly* how white supremacy works, and the multiple complicated ways it enacts itself on our bodies, lives and communities. The point is to ask ourselves—why *would* an assimilated man (whether he identifies as hispanic or as white or *whatever*—he *became* what he is through assimilation) regard a 17 year old black boy as a *threat*? why *would* he hunt down that child and murder him in cold blood? what does what he did have to do with assimilation? What *is* it that assimilation thing is asking of us? and what does trayvon’s murder have to do with angie zapata’s  murder? was it *really* just that “hispanic” bad apple men decided today was the day to kill somebody? Or is there something going on with this weird mix of liberal white reformists, deeply white supremacists states depending on travel economies and white liberal vacation fantasies, ambiguously white but not quite cis men, and assimilation?

why is it acceptable to even *imagine* a mestizaje with no black/afro roots? why is ambiguity centered on the experiences of ambiguously white but not quite? what are the different ways we use ambiguity within the process of assimilation and white supremacy? what benefits do white but not white folks get within white supremacist systems? what violent trade off are we all forced to negotiate? what is it that allows men to use that ambiguity for protection, when most of us, that ambiguity exists as a space of violent attack?

what does it mean to be black in our countries of origin? what does it mean to be white? what does it mean to be *no longer white* in the US?

There are a LOT of questions our communities need to be asking ourselves right now. and sitting with and honestly working through. false calls for “unity” are false because oh, woah—a hispanic may have just murdered a black boy. proving that *unity never existed to begin with*.

so instead of trying to impose positivity on a relationship that has violence laced all through it—(or, existed within very specific communities that made *concious* decisions to work together and negotiate relationships together), we could be brave. and start asking the right questions.

(via bad-dominicana)

rosadefuego:

and people answered with a bunch of stereotypes

i mean yeah haha so funny but

seriously what the fuck

fuck you

i wanted suggestions

i know the stereotypes

my suggestions:

• Anything by Sandra Cisneros
• Americanos
• American Me
• Stand & Deliver
• Mi Vida Loca
• Quinceanera
• George Washington Gomez
• Habla con tus abuelos (si te puede) de sus jovenidades.

Those are some recommendations off the top of my head.