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the-necessary-unnecessary · 4 years

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hey, can you tell us a bit about racism in Spain? I'm incredibly uneducated about it, and I don't know much about Spanish history especially racism wise so it would be really nice to get an insight from you about it.

this is a big question, since Spain’s relationship with xenophobia dates back centuries and I’m neither the most qualified person to take you through it nor someone who has suffered from Spanish society’s racist tendencies. However I’ll try to piece a bit of something together and maybe other people can add on if there’s other stuff to include. Also, this is mainly Spanish history from a racism perspective, there are many other positive things in other areas that I haven’t included (patriota pero no mucho)

So basically, up until the 15th century, Spain (in its then form) was a relatively harmonious melting pot of different cultures. With the Roman invasion, settlements and a Visigoth takeover (Germanic population) thereafter, Christianity was pretty firmly established in the country/iberian peninsula by the 2nd Century AD. In 711 AD the Moors, who had control over Islamic Africa, invaded the peninsula and established a Caliphate named Al-Andalus which had a particular stronghold in the south: in Andalusia and their Córdoban capital. Rule was stronger or weaker depending on the region but largely Islamic rule was established and Jewish and Catholic people were treated as second class citizens. Córdoba became the wealthiest, largest and most sophisticated city in Europe by the end of the tenth century, with trade and rich intellectual North African traditions forming a unique culture in the region.

There is a strong historical basis that during a lot of this period there was pockets of ‘La Convivencia’ ie. the co-existence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Like for example, around Toledo where in universities the three backgrounds contributed to tremendous amounts of sharing of knowledge etc.

However, from about the 9th century onwards the Catholics who still held strong points right in the north, begun ‘la Reconquista’, the “reconquest,” where they began chipping away at the Caliphate’s dominance. By the early 11th century they had gained more land than was held by the Muslims and 1492 is where we set our next scene.

This is probably one of the biggest and most path changing years in Spanish history. Most known for being the year when Columbus landed in America, this enabled the start of Spanish imperlism which would extend to almost 5 centuries afterwards, conquering territories in South America, Africa and Asia and subjecting them to imperialistic rule and policies of white totalitarian dominance.

The second important happening in this year was the fall of Granada, the last remaining territory the Caliphate had in Spain, signifying the end of Muslim rule in the country. They were, as expected, thrown out of the country in their droves and many others were forced into hiding being subject to situations that would only get worse with the Inquisition in full swing.

The third, and last, big event in this year was outlined in the Alhambra Decree where the expulsion of all practicing Jews was announced. Now this had already followed the forced conversion tens of thousands of Jews had been subjected to in 1391 and 1415 (ie. crusades and masacres against them). As a result of the Alhambra decree and the prior persecution, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and around 160,000 were expelled.

This ended religious diversity in Spain, the Inquisition sealed this fate. If you’ve heard of one thing about all of this I’m sure it’s the spanish inquisition. Primarily set up to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism and ensure the establishment of the Catholic monarchy, it became a method of torture, fear and murder for those who were perceived to cause any threat to the Spanish catholic order. The effects of the Inquisition are widely debated, with some saying the death toll and magnitude has been blown up by the Protestants in other European countries at the time and does not show the full picture of the hundreds of thousands of converted jews and muslims who remained and overtime became integrated into Catholic society. Whilst others remaining firm to the devastating measure of these actions and the ‘pure blood’ mentality it created. What’s for certain though, is that by the end of the Inquisition in 1834 very little religious nor ethnic diversity remained in Spain.

Jump forward about 100 years and the Spanish Empire is no more after the 1898 crisis, there’s a weird back and forth period with Republics and Monarchies and dictatorships until the Civil War broke out in 1936. It lasted until 1939 when the Nationalists, led by Franco, took total control of the country and submitted it to a dictatorship that would last until his death in 1975. I don’t even know where to begin with a period that many people see as rosy and many others ignore completely whilst Historians have now gone so far as to call the 1940s and 50s the ‘Spanish Holocaust’. However I’ll break it down to one or two main things that have predominantly spurred on today’s racist attitudes.

During the Civil Rights movements of the 50s and 60s Spain was largely immune to the winds of changes due to their isolationist policies and dictatorial power holds. We didn’t take part in any of the dialogue nor go through any racial reconciliation, at least to much a lesser extent than most other countries. It’s quite a common thing to say that what much of europe did in 70 years we’ve only had time to do in 45, and there’s much of a grain of truth in this.

A famous conservative spanish politician called David Aznar defended these views and can be extrapolated into the sentiment that existed to facilitate the transition to democracy and still remain today: "In the democratic transition there were implicit and explicit agreements. One was that we Spaniards don't want to look to the past. Let's not disturb the graves and hurl bones at one another.” As a society, we hate to think about the past, it’s just not widely done. There’s ONE museum solely dedicated to the Civil War, the Historical Memory Law passed in 2007 to try and increase the rights of victims and their families was met by so much opposition and is devastatingly underfunded etc etc. This still translates to spaniards’ views on racism, saying it just doesn’t exist here and moving on. There’s a refusal to confront this and microagressions are ingrained in the culture.

As I’ve kind of mentioned before, issues of race extend much further than towards just black people which is why the US BLM movement cannot simply be traced onto Spain. People who are originally from Latin America face extreme stereotypes and varying forms of discrimination against them as do Arab populations and other people who have immigrated from MENA countries plus the large Roma communities.

The refugee crisis has further perpetuated the stigma around African immigrants in the past years, whilst the social effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis and beyond also continue to contribute to a xenophobic and nativist perspective where true spaniards should be prioritised with jobs, opportunities etc. For example, the alt-right wing party Vox that’s blatantly racist, anti-immigrants etc posted something with the slogan ‘Spanish Lives Matter’ the other day. They are purposefully incendiary.

Anyways, hope this was a suitable start for you, you can’t summarise millennia worths of history into a few paragraphs but I tried my best. Also there are obviously many who stand for none of these values, politicians who have tried to right these wrongs, activists who keep fighting the fight, people who have broken down barriers and areas where there’s complete coexistance. However the fact remains that these views and ideas are ingrained in people’s minds, theres blatant job discrimination and a lack of equal opportunities despite laws that may have been put in place.

I’m going to point anyone who has got this far to a couple of articles about racism from an Anglo-Saxon perspective below, racist football culture is almost always mentioned. Being a black traveller in Spain; Same Spanish Holocaust link as before but an extremely important book review read; Irish perspective on the Enigma of Spanish Racism; Racism? What Racism? Asks Spain; Opinion: Racism Is Alive and kicking in Spain

#almost a decade of ciencias sociales and cono lessons pulling through #anyways there's a lot here so maybe dont read it all by id recommend having a good skim of it!#i tried ny best to condense almost two centuries worth of histort into one post lol #blm #black lives matter #racism #spain #españa #history #og #the asks #*not two centuries lol two millennia im out here discrediting myself and everything i wrote

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blusargento · 4 years

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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.

#nati shut up #i'm just angry #sorry if this didn't make any sense

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