FAFO

[duluoz]

Oh, have you listened to most of them?

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on especially the non-western people who believe in a creator. Indigenous religions all over the world, Shinto, Taoism, Hindus, Tengriism, bronze age polytheism, african tribal religion, Mesoamerican tribal religion, etc. You've found all of them to be "sheep" who insist that their understanding of the creator is the *only* true one?

These people you’re pointing out are not shaping public policy nor waging major wars though, are they.

If you want to get semantic and pick on “most” or ”many” then I’m happy to tighten that to say “most whose religions are having major negative impacts on global events.” Which I’m sure you knew I meant. Not many Bronze Age polytheists bombing people or ripping away women’s reproductive rights, last I checked.

 

[Centerpiece]

I think people misunderestimate how racist some latinos are against other latinos.

Agree. And I'm sure you meant "underestimate" or "mis-estimate" and not "misunderestimate" ... but we get your drift.

Yes indeed. The folks descended from Spain directly feel they are superior. Any indigenous peoples who were conquered by Spain, or any African peoples who were enslaved and brought to Spain-dominated territories are definitely looked down upon by the "Euro-Hispanics". The Mulattoes (or Mulata) are definitely frowned upon. Heck, talk to a Euro-Cubano about Mexicans and they'll give you an ear full. And that's just one example. Honestly, I don't know which group is looked down upon the most: Those descended from African slaves or the indigenous folk who were conquered and imperialized. My best guess is they are both treated with disdain equally. Need @donbosco to weigh in.

 

[UNCatTech]

How so? We do ourselves a huge disservice by pretending that Latinos are a monolithic group free of prejudice against other Latinos.

It's that it is toward their own people.

Not that racism is ever good or acceptable, it is just harder to understand within the same race.

But, I may just be being naive.

 

[duluoz]

I just think there are better ways of talking about religion than simply equating it to its worst representatives.

The worst representatives are the loudest and are aggressively persecuting non-believers and “nonconformists.” So they dominate the conversation, clearly. That’s not our choice, it was forced on us.

If the better representatives of these religions would rise up against those clowns, then we could have the more pleasant and idyllic exchanges you’re alluding to. Where are their voices? Why aren’t they winning followers over to a more tolerant worldview? Because until then, those conversations you’re referring to don’t amount to much, unfortunately. It’s rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

 

[Zoo_View]

This is puzzling.

Pretty certain he’s saying that certain groups of Latinos look “down” on other groups of Latinos. It’s similar to Americans of Northern European descent putting up “No Irish” signs or discriminating against Italians, Slavs, Poles, etc.

Without a doubt, many Spanish Latinos look down on Indigenous Latinos AND black Latinos. The “whiter” or more European-looking, the better.

Many (most?) Cuban-Americans pretty much look down on all other Latinos in the US. The Cubans who fled when Castro overthrew the Batista dictatorship were largely Hispanic Cubans. They certainly were not Afro-Cubans and few were of indigenous heritage.

In many cases, the elite governing classes in Latin America were mostly of European heritage. They dominated and/or enslaved the indigenous people (similar to the United States and Canada). Europeans conquering indigenous people were not exactly kind.

It’s likely that Latinos in the USA who have fled Communism regard themselves as higher up the food chain than indigenous people looking for a better life.

Basically, not all Latinos are the same.

 

[hedge]

I'm sure you meant "underestimate" or "mis-estimate" and not "misunderestimate" ... but we get your drift.

I think he definitely meant misunderestimate (and we did get his drift)...

 

[Bobfripp]

I think people misunderestimate how racist some latinos are against other latinos.

“They misunderestimated me.”
― George W. Bush

 

[Mulberry Heel]

Biblical literalism is a relatively new phenomenon, which started to arise with mass literacy in the 19th century, and in response to scientific findings that seemed to obviate some passages and texts. Before that, nobody really much cared....scripture was considered "inspired," not "inerrant" or "literally and factually true in every sentence"

Didn't Jesus himself speak in parables that taught moral lessons but were not supposed to be taken as necessarily real or true?

 

[Mulberry Heel]

great chart. I stand corrected. But how do we account for trumps rise in latino / Hispanic voting in 2024? He made serious in-roads. Maybe it just “seems” they don’t like gays and abortion, when in fact perhaps they’re on board with social issues like that. But we also have to admit, the trumpers and pubs always bashing them probably scares most of them Away from the pubs and to the dems.

The same thing happened with George W. Bush in 2004. Bush substantially increased his Latino vote from the 2000 election. In 1996 only 21% of Latinos voted for Republican Bob Dole instead of Bill Clinton. In 2000 35% of Latinos voted for Dubya, and in 2004 he raised his Latino vote to 44%, or about the same as Trump got last year. But in 2008 the GOP's share of the Latino vote plummeted, falling back to just 31% for McCain, and in 2012 Romney did even worse, getting just 27% of the Latino vote. In 2016 Trump won only 28% of the Latino vote.

So basically this pattern has happened before - a GOP POTUS increases the GOP share of the Latino vote, but then it eventually falls back. I will be interested to see what percentage of the Latino vote the next Republican candidate gets in 2028. I have a hunch that after their deportations and attacks on immigrants that the GOP share of Latino voters will drop again, probably significantly.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

My devout devotion to the Law of Parsimony

Dollo or Fitch?

 

[Zoo_View]

I think he definitely meant misunderestimate (and we did get his drift)...

I think he misspoke……kinda like when people say “irregardless” when they meant “regardless.”

 

[hedge]

I say irregardless on purpose all the time. Kinda like unkindest (but not really)...

 

[eternalheel]

Agree. And I'm sure you meant "underestimate" or "mis-estimate" and not "misunderestimate" ... but we get your drift.

Yes indeed. The folks descended from Spain directly feel they are superior. Any indigenous peoples who were conquered by Spain, or any African peoples who were enslaved and brought to Spain-dominated territories are definitely looked down upon by the "Euro-Hispanics". The Mulattoes (or Mulata) are definitely frowned upon. Heck, talk to a Euro-Cubano about Mexicans and they'll give you an ear full. And that's just one example. Honestly, I don't know which group is looked down upon the most: Those descended from African slaves or the indigenous folk who were conquered and imperialized. My best guess is they are both treated with disdain equally. Need @donbosco to weigh in.

The Spaniard's colonization, human trafficking and toxic culture shaping isn't talked about enough.

Technically, it's sickening.

That being said, one of the most incredible, decent ppl I've ever known was a Spanish man I met in the 90's. Good dude. Real good dude.

*Take a look at what the Spanish culture shaping did to Sammy Sosa. Frign tragedy...

 

[UNCatTech]

Please run on this in the midterms.

The only thing more unpopular than this board where the same 10-15 posters jerk each other off daily about how smart you are is the Democrats..

21%

Then why are you here, if it's so unpopular?

If you are lost on your journey and cannot know your father at birth then you are cursed to be a trumplican cult member, but worry not for Kalisia will help you to find your true reason for being a bad prostitute.

 

[donbosco]

The social/racial hierarchy established by Spanish colonization still has legs today but it is a big region and in my experience the race part is especially varied from country to country and even within nations. All kinds of historical factors come into play in that figuring...were the indigenous people in a particular place wiped out or kept alive to work? What were the initial contact years like? Has the country seen lengthy progressive periods when civil rights were advanced or has it been a hard elitist clamp down from the get-go? And so on and so on...

This chart does a cursory job in helping one to imagine the colonial beginnings and their legacy...but again, it hardly demonstrates the profound complexity of even the early colonial racial classifications that remain extant in many ways today.



The fact that during the late colonial period it was possible to actually purchase "certificates of whiteness," [Limpieza de sangre] infused many places with a deeper class-based (i.e., wealth) element to the hierarchy. I think this is one of the more confusing factors looking in from the outside and in particular when viewing the divisions between Latin Americans and their descendants who have moved to the USA.

Like I wrote above...the waters are super complicated.

And then you throw in religion and you've got flat-out mud.

 

[Centerpiece]

The social/racial hierarchy established by Spanish colonization still has legs today but it is a big region and in my experience the race part is especially varied from country to country and even within nations. All kinds of historical factors come into play in that figuring...were the indigenous people in a particular place wiped out or kept alive to work? What were the initial contact years like? Has the country seen lengthy progressive periods when civil rights were advanced or has it been a hard elitist clamp down from the get-go? And so on and so on...

This chart does a cursory job in helping one to imagine the colonial beginnings and their legacy...but again, it hardly demonstrates the profound complexity of even the early colonial racial classifications that remain extant in many ways today.



The fact that during the late colonial period it was possible to actually purchase "certificates of whiteness," [Limpieza de sangre] infused many places with a deeper class-based (i.e., wealth) element to the hierarchy. I think this is one of the more confusing factors looking in from the outside and in particular when viewing the divisions between Latin Americans and their descendants who have moved to the USA.

Like I wrote above...the waters are super complicated.

And then you throw in religion and you've got flat-out mud.

I knew you would be the one to shed more light on the subject... my wife is also knowledgeable on the issue too. She said perhaps it's more of a caste system issue - or "Classism" more-so than Racism. Or maybe it's a combination of both classism and racism. And it does vary from country to country according to her. (She lived in Panama, Honduras and Mexico and has traveled to almost all countries in Central and South America as well as Mexico and "the islands".)

All I know is my wife's friend from Cuba (looks like he came straight from Madrid, and looks nothing like Cuban baseball player Aroldis Chapman, for example) told her, with a condescending sneer on his face: "Nancy, you speak Spanish just like a Mexican!" The racist/classism undertone in his voice was not lost on anyone.

The chart you shared is consistent with what I've thought all along in terms of hierarchy, and who looks down on whom.

It seems as if; you look like someone from Argentina (Messi) you're considered to be at the top of that chart. If you look like you are a native, indigenous Guatemalan you're at the bottom. If you look like Roberto Clemente, you're somewhere in between.

 

[Centerpiece]

The worst representatives are the loudest and are aggressively persecuting non-believers and “nonconformists.” So they dominate the conversation, clearly. That’s not our choice, it was forced on us.

If the better representatives of these religions would rise up against those clowns, then we could have the more pleasant and idyllic exchanges you’re alluding to. Where are their voices? Why aren’t they winning followers over to a more tolerant worldview? Because until then, those conversations you’re referring to don’t amount to much, unfortunately. It’s rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

You can usually find these voices within the Episcopal Church (for one example)... but the very nature of those who try to walk the earth in a "Christ-like" manner are going to be the "meek and mild" sort. Kind of like how the carpenter from Nazareth did, turning the other cheek and all of that. If you expect Mother Teresa to get up in Marjorie T-Green's face, you'll be disappointed.

What you want to see is the guy who turned the tables over on the money changers... but as it is - that sort of reaction just isn't found in many of the meek and mild followers.

Those other loud voices we hear coming from MAGA church-goers seem to win out versus the more Christ-like folks.

 

[donbosco]

Old Poli Sci texts once deemed Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile broadly as the Neo-Europes of Spanish Latin America while Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay as Neo-Indigenous. Neo-Mestizo nations tend to be Mexico (though they have been slotted into the Neo-Indigenous category on occasion), Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama. The Neo-Africa nations are mostly in the Caribbean (where so many millions and millions of enslaved Africans were taken). Some countries of course have regions that would fit other categories...even down to provinces or cities.

 

[heelinhell]

I really don't know. I think in earlier religions, like Hinduism and early Judaism and Greek religion, the afterlife was just a shadowy place (Yam, Sheol, Hades) that everyone went to regardless if you were good or bad. I think early indigenous traditions had a sort of view of an underworld or afterlife too, especially the Australian aborigines. But none of those had a "hell" as a counterpart, they weren't attached to morals or beliefs.

The attachment to morals or beliefs came during the Axial age (500 BC), when Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrian and Greek traditions all began to conceive of *two* afterlives, one of the good guys and one for the bad guys. And of course both Christainity and Islam, since they came later, inherited that view.

But I don't think there's any intrinsic connection between belief in a Creator and hope for an afterlife. Lots of Jews throughout history have not believed in an afterlife, and yet they still worship the Creator.

My understanding is that many (most ? ) Jews believe in an after life ( olam ha-ba ) but that good deeds in the here and now are what is most important.

And although Hindus don't believe in an after life per se but rather a continuous life ( samsara ) they join the other major religions that reject the notion that non-existence is what follows death.

As always, I learn a bit more from your posts. Thank you, kind sir

 

[TarSpiel]

The folks descended from Spain directly feel they are superior. Any indigenous peoples who were conquered by Spain, or any African peoples who were enslaved and brought to Spain-dominated territories are definitely looked down upon by the "Euro-Hispanics".

These days, my classes are very racially, religiously, and ideologically diverse. (And since I teach at a community college, they're small, and classroom is the main focus of my job). We're really having 2nd generation conversations about a bunch of stuff nowadays, and racism is one of the biggies.

LIstening to hispanic Mexicans talk about how they always grew up hating Central Americans (and vice versa), sparks a Punjabi to talk about colorism in India against the Dravidians of Tamil Nadu, which leads a black kid to talk about failing the paper bag test. It's crazy, and very interesting. We can also start talking about the vicious hatred English and German whites had against Irish and Italian ones. It's a super interesting conversation, and none of the kids really get upset by it, realizing that all these tendencies and experiences, good ones and bad ones, exist in all of us, as part of the basic fabric of the human experience.