Not condoning it, but anybody successful was almost certainly a racist.
The Portuguese had an explicit miscegenation policy in their age of sail conquests, with the stated goal of leaving their mixed race offspring in charge of the colonies. The Spanish were ultra-xenophobes, but mostly because of religion. The British and Dutch were so ultra-racist they convinced themselves they were superior to other whites.
Generalizations rarely pan out.
First time I’ve heard of this Portuguese policy. Any recommendations for any papers analyzing or discussing this in more details?
It’s essentially the founding myth of Brazil.
For an American, think about the cultural significance of Thanksgiving, that’s Carnaval.
Watch a couple of Carnaval parades on Sapucai and you’ll see this default theme over and over again, the browns were here, caravels bring the white, then the black, and all three mix to make Brazil’s distinctive food, music, and population (and our neighborhood is the coolest).
To give you an idea of how baked into the national mindset that is, I started hearing parade drums while typing that last paragraph.
Miscegenation and syncretism are explicitly celebrated every year in the week long festival of national identity.
Now, the framing of it is super white centric, the starting event is the arrival of white Magalhães, and there has never been anything even close to political or economic equality.
When I was growing up there in the 80s, there was practically zero social concern around people with different skin colors dating. It was strange to move to the states and have people tell me that Brazil was “more” racist than the US.
Haven’t been to Portugal but my brother says there are three lines at the airport: EU, lusophone country, and everybody else.
I’ve got it from a book, which does have sources listed, but I don’t have the book anymore. Its title was “Náufragos, traficantes e degredados”, I don’t think there’s an English translation.
This wasn’t because the Portuguese were nice, mind you. But the crown knew they did not have the population to control the vast overseas territories they intended to keep.
The Portuguese were about the first to sail South of the Equator, and that was fueled entirely on African slave trade into Europe. They weren’t good guys by any measure. But they were pragmatic, and racism doesn’t make any sense so it had to go.
“Náufragos, traficantes e degredados”, I don’t think there’s an English translation.
“castaways, smugglers and degenerates”. At least, my spanish would lead me to believe that’s what it is
EDIT : I’m not saying the text is spanish, its portuguese. I’m saying I’m using my abilities in spanish to translate the title into english, as spanish and portuguese are VERY similar
Degredados is better translated banished. Like the British criminals sent to Australia. The rest is accurate.
Sometimes I use English to grasp at unknown German and Dutch words, but there’s often drift in meaning. It’s still a useful tool.
The Spanish were ultra-xenophobes
Well, the ones writing the policies were. The ones that actually went over the world varied a lot.
Generalizations rarely pan out 😉
But I’m judging solely on the effects of the general native population. If the non xenophobes can’t push the needle in their direction, they didn’t matter that much.
I remember a poli sci prof telling John A stories, like going into a mine and turning it into a multiday drunk because women and thus his wife or secretary or someone wasn’t able to go get him.
Why do you think his statue was removed in Montréal’s Dorchester Square? People kept pulling it down and splashing red paint on it.
There’s a reason we renamed a bunch of things like schools like 4 years ago. One of the local high schools was named after him, now it’s not.
I went from trains to alcohol to seriously im not kidding about the racism to more racism to racism.
Prefect meme. 10/10.
You had me in the first half ngl
Is it really weird that someone who wanted to draw borders to keep the “others” out is racist? Isn’t every country inherently racist?
Isn’t every country inhabited by people with recessive phenotypes (fair hair, non-dark eyes, non-dark skin, etc) filtered the others to keep their recessive phenotypes?
How do you enrich white skin in one place without racism or at least xenophobia?
How did those white genes end up outside of Europe in Canada if they love borders so much?
Gonna steal this to use, thanks
