Something I really wouldn’t otherwise have noticed… a comment thread on Lawyers, Guns and Money” (the post in question was about the now un-tariffing of electronics) mentioned Trump’s appearance at an MMA featherweight fight, in which the Brazilian fighter, Jean Silva knocked out US fighter Bryce Mitchell. Mitchell is apparently best known as a conspiracy theorist and admirer of Adolf Hitler.
Of course, this is a site (blog) not exactly Hitler-tolerant, so cheers for Mr. Silva. a few cute comments like “Bryce on ice” and “he did Nazi it coming” … but it kind of ruins the fun, and shows how really US-centric (and race obessivive) even US “liberals” are when someone commented on Mr. Silva “He could pass for European”.
PASS? All Brazilians (and all Latin American) have a standard “look”, or standard ethnicity? Or the same “mix” of ethnicities? Even if of European descent why would a Brazilian need to hold himself out as European, or for what reason?
No one seriously denies that “colorism” or racial sterotyping doesn’t exist in this part of the world, nor that adhering to “western” standard (including in one’s looks) is advantagous in most situations. A different thing from saying a person COULD mimic those standards — “pass” as European (or whatever) — with an assumption they’d want to… or even ever considered it.
“Pass as European “ ? Yikes !
Both my parents grew up in Argentina. I'm light-skinned. Most people consider me white until they learn my name. Lots of people, at least here in the U.S., either don't realize or find it hard to accept that Latin America is not made up of a uniform race.