Politically Correctness And Racism In Argentina

Girino

Girino

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What's the local sensitivity to racism and how is the PC protocol when discussing this in public?

Fact #1: An Argentine family member was talking about her friends complaining about how "negros" (indios) are "invading" the cities and spreading criminality. Is this a shared opinion or is it just the snob white elitism of her friend? Are the people of European heritage considering themselves "better" than the natives?

Fact #2: Another Argentine family member was commenting about the lack of house care (no cooking, cleaning or tidying) of a friend, and added "she must be of Spanish heritage" (the speaker was of Italian heritage)

Fact #3: I was in Italy with a group of Italians I never met before at a food festival to raise money for Ethiopia. They were selling tickets for a draw. One of the ticket seller approached our table, he was an African teenager and an Italian native speaker. They *jokingly* told him they were buying tickets just to give him money to return him home. Not funny, imo, and the guy didn't seem offended.

Fact #4: Same evening as above, a drunk lady kept saying she wasn't understanding what I was saying in my "foreign language". We have the same native language, the place was noisy, she was drunk and I look like a foreigner. Why on earth did she think this was funny?! She repeated that line three times in the evening and nobody told her to shut up.


Am I becoming oversensitive?
 
I don't think you are. People are very racist in Argentina. It's sad but it's true. There was a thread about this a few months ago. If I had 50 pesos for every time I've heard a taxi driver call another driver boliviano de %$%$% I would probably have enough money to gift ARBound to get out of here. People have a lot of nasty racist feelings here and there's little or no PC culture here as opposed to the US. They face little or no consequences. They also lack tact when it comes to saying things like Korean and Chinese are the same thing, even if the people in question are in the room.
 
While a little tact wouldnt hurt I think being open about things, and choosing not to be ´offended´ at things like lame attempts at jokes is much preferable to the stifling over PC that seems to be going on in the US.
 
Chet said:
While a little tact wouldnt hurt I think being open about things, and choosing not to be ´offended´ at things like lame attempts at jokes is much preferable to the stifling over PC that seems to be going on in the US.
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Well said.

IMO PC in Canada and the US has morphed into a religion - a system of beliefs that has no basis in reality but provides comfort to the believers.
 
Coming from San Francisco I was sick to death of the PC stuff. I feel a lot of that is actually elitist and separatist not to mention super uptight and annoying. However, some of the racist stuff I've heard here has made my stomach turn. I suppose either end of the racist/PC spectrum isn't great and as with most things the healthy area is the middle ground.
 
Isadora said:
What's the local sensitivity to racism and how is the PC protocol when discussing this in public?

Fact #1: An Argentine family member was talking about her friends complaining about how "negros" (indios) are "invading" the cities and spreading criminality. Is this a shared opinion or is it just the snob white elitism of her friend? Are the people of European heritage considering themselves "better" than the natives?

Fact #2: Another Argentine family member was commenting about the lack of house care (no cooking, cleaning or tidying) of a friend, and added "she must be of Spanish heritage" (the speaker was of Italian heritage)

Fact #3: I was in Italy with a group of Italians I never met before at a food festival to raise money for Ethiopia. They were selling tickets for a draw. One of the ticket seller approached our table, he was an African teenager and an Italian native speaker. They *jokingly* told him they were buying tickets just to give him money to return him home. Not funny, imo, and the guy didn't seem offended.

Fact #4: Same evening as above, a drunk lady kept saying she wasn't understanding what I was saying in my "foreign language". We have the same native language, the place was noisy, she was drunk and I look like a foreigner. Why on earth did she think this was funny?! She repeated that line three times in the evening and nobody told her to shut up.


Am I becoming oversensitive?
Click to expand...

There isn't too much political correctness when it comes to saying racist things, but to talk about racisim itself is a HUGE taboo.

Argentina is definitely a more racist country than many of our home countries, yet, if you confront an Argentine about this, they will deny it, say that it's all in jest and that you're just overly sensitive. There is even a lot of this apologist behavior here on Baexpats; search for racism and you'll see what I'm talking about.

My mother always taught me not to bring up religion or politics at parties. I later realized that this applies to all other completely irracional beliefs, including, racism/sexism, Argentine football, the quality of Argentine beef or women as compared to the rest of the world, etc.
 
I think Argentina is one of the most racist countries I've ever been to, and I say this not because of the
negrito or che negro comments, but because of the fact it is still okay to go on tv, be at a social event,
say on the subway/cafe/restaurant and basically say in English "The N****** and Indians from XYZ are
coming here and ruining the country/are motochorros."

Personal conversations using that language still disgust me, but the fact people can say it in the press
here is another thing.

Sorry Argies, it's not the hard working Bolivians ruining your wonderful white, European, first world country (sarcasm)
it's you guys and has been for the last 100 years.
 
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