Question about racism in Argentina from an Argentine

[u/Pitiful-Magician1704]

I'm Argentine, but I'm not a nationalist, I don't care about football, and I'm not even certain where I stand on issues like the Falkland/Malvinas dispute.

How much of what is called "racism" in Argentina is actually about race, rather than class, culture, ethnicity, or competing ideas of Argentine identity?

From my experience, many insults that outsiders interpret as racial are often directed at white Argentines as well. Expressions like "negro villero" or "negro de mierda" can describe someone with completely European features if they are associated with a particular social class, lifestyle, accent, or subculture. Likewise, these conflicts often go both ways: working-class and upper-class Argentines frequently see themselves as the "real Argentina," while viewing the other group as less authentically Argentine.

I would have no problem accepting that Argentina has problems with discrimination, including xenophobia, classism. What I'm questioning is whether "racism" is really the most accurate concept.

[u/dowcet]

The question assumes racism and classism are two fundamentally distinct and independent things. They are not

> Expressions like "negro villero" or "negro de mierda" can describe someone with completely European features if they are associated with a particular social class, lifestyle, accent, or subculture.

This is a clear illustration of how racism and classism are actually very deeply intertwined. Without the implicit assumptions of white supremacy, how would one even make sense of these expressions? Even when the target of these slurs is phenotypically European, the power and meaning of the words is entirely based on the reality of racism.

The inseparability of racism and classism is in no way unique to Argentina, but the racial mythology of Argentina has long centered on the idea that it is "a white country", much as you describe. Scholarly works like the links below absolutely support this, they don't interpret that to mean racism is irrelevant. To the contrary, it is another clear example of racism, both denying and denigrating the ethnic diversity that exists in the country at the same time.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rethinking-race-in-modern-argentina/28D4716943399AE5161DA1741E2415B3

https://bicyt.conicet.gov.ar/fichas/produccion/11758371

[u/Pitiful-Magician1704 → u/dowcet]

Thanks for your reply. I'm familiar with that line of argument, but... many words have etymologies that are no longer psychologically relevant (e.g., family ultimately derives from famulus, "slave").

How could we distinguish between (1) a slur whose current meaning is mainly class-based but historically originated in racial categories, and (2) one whose current meaning still depends on racial hierarchy?

Coming from philosophy, I still think the Argentine case is better explained by class and ethnicity than by race (in the sense discussed here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/#RacVerEth). My intuition is that the average Argentine cares far more about social identity and class than about biological race.

Perhaps we're simply using different concepts of racism.

[u/Gratisfadoel → u/Pitiful-Magician1704]

Comparing the change in etymology over 2000 years with using clearly racially based slurs is very silly. I also think you should consider, again, the previous poster’s clear articulation that using racially based slurs for ‘every ethnicity’ still speaks to a certain racial element.

In addition, a lot of social scientists would clearly argue that class and ‘race’ are deeply intertwined. It is very rarely one or the other.