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kin OP wrote

Sorry I didn't wanted to make anyone feel attacked by this. I consider myself to be a white latino, not white passing but white, so I am inside my own critique and I try to descobstruct whiteness from my day to day.

Probably this is a conclusion about individuals weaponizing identity when it suits them, I am not saying that there's somewhat a ladder of privilege regarding colorism, but when you have a particular identity you can use it to excuse other, and it works for anything like gender, queer, race, age, disability, etc.. this is more a call to destroy whiteness and all the things attached

There are obviously limitations to have this discussion on an internet board, like the tone and the feeling of the conversation. So again sorry to anyone that felt attacked..

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

I didn't feel attacked at all; I just wanted to point out that whiteness is actually more...complicated than what you're saying. Not sure how they do it anywhere else, but latin-americans are lumped into their category here, down to the paperwork concerning job applications and government assistance: white, black, asian, etc. all have "non-latino" within parenthesis, whereas "latino" is its own racial category.

"Ethnic" whites weren't considered white in the past (conservative irish-americans and italian-americans love pointing this out to dismiss racial issues), but they are now. White latinos aren't white here because they're not considered to have fully assimilated into WASP culture like the other "ethnic" whites did.

So, yeah, passing for white gets you some benefits in regards to privilege; as far as "engaging with whiteness" goes, I think it's more of an individual thing; a lot of white latin-americans that were born here aren't used to being told that they're white, they don't consider themselves as such; there are white-passing (or just plain white) latin-americans that engage with whiteness as well, but I can't say that it's a conscious choice on their part.

I am reluctant to call it "white", though; since that construct is cultural as well as racial.

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