Sixth week: Blood issues

In the audiovisual world, we have a phrase that says: "Reality surpasses fiction" and when you hear things people lived in wars, conquests, or colonies, it seems unbelievable but at the same time, you know that maybe it was worse than what we read.

In the readings of this week, we read about ideologies of  'cleaning blood´ or ´making your race better´, since before the colonization of America, and how brutally it was practiced in the Americas. Racism is something that even today when we get all the information, we still live with the consequences and the new groups that appear that still think this way.

In this video, in a short time, it shows some examples of what this means, not only in the days of colonization, but in the XXth century, and what is happening today.


It's an issue that even though we are trying to make a better society, is still something complicated. Maybe less brutal but still unfair and still violent. 

One of the things that I read that was absurd was this:

"Jews liked money, Acosta pointed out, while Indians  were not even aware of it; and while Jews took circumcision seriously, Indians had no idea of it. Last but not least, if Indians were indeed of Jewish origin, they would not have forgotten the Messiah and their religion." (Mignolo, p. 86)

For me, it was absurd, because how could they say that the Indigenous people were Jewish just because they were not white ...or black. It was so obvious. How could these people be so obsessed with thinking that? And how strong was this thought that someone had to prove it? 

On the same reading, one interesting thing was this affirmation:

"Race and gender are two concepts of Western modernity that make us believe they “represent” something that exists.  Behind race  there is an implied logic of classification (the logic of coloniality) assuming that  people belong to differ ent races and the markers are blood and skin color.  Behind gender  there is an implied logic of classification assuming that  there are  women and men. The classifications shape and guide our perception of society. However, decolonial gnoseological assumptions say that names and classifications do not refer to what there is but frame what we perceive."   (Mignolo, p. 85)


And, I think it is right about our perception for many generations until now.  The conception of women is different nowadays from 30 years ago, and laws about racism have also changed as the video said, although, the social dynamics are not as open as they should be. It has been a long road until the point we are today but it's not enough. We still see discrimination, especially in acquiring rights, services, or jobs. 

The Martinez reading was also something we knew in a general way, but she brings details about how this problem was not only a social issue but involved economic and power issues around racism and discrimination. How the crown dealt with it and how it was implemented in the Americas.

About the readings, I really don´t have much to say about them: that is very hurtful to read about it, and still know that many things need to change. Even though I think that today is better. Once I read a testimony of a black man who was free from jail because he proved he was innocent. He was impressed by the world that he discovered today, he talked about mobiles and other things, but especially he said something positive and it was that today kids from other communities,  talk to him in the park and 3 decades ago that wouldn't happened because he was black. But still, he was a victim of a false accusation in which racism had a lot to do with it.

 Bibliography

DW_español (2024). ¿Has oído hablar del término “mejorar la raza”?

Martínez, María Elena. Genealogical fictions: limpieza de sangre, religion, and gender in colonial Mexico. Stanford University Press, 2008.

Mignolo, Walter D. The politics of decolonial investigations. Duke University Press, 2021. 

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