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Thank you @tombrokaw for apologizing. But your comments about Latinx folks needing to work harder at assimilating were more than offensive. They were racist. Assimilationist ideas are racist ideas. An apology is empty without admitting & studying how your ideas were racist ideas.
Anytime we say something is wrong with a racial group, we are articulating a racist idea. Anytime we say that racial group should change to be more like our racial group—or to be more American, which is code word for White American—we are articulating an assimilationist idea.
Assimilationist ideas are racist ideas because they are based on the assumption there is something wrong with another racial group that needs changing or something right with our racial group that doesn’t need changing.
Antiracist ideas, by comparison, suggest there is nothing wrong or right with any and every racial group. Antiracist ideas, by comparison, respect and level and value the differences between the racial groups.
When I say difference, I mean only phenotypic and cultural difference (not our genetic and behavioral sameness).
Antiracist ideas suggest the problem of our society is not groups of people failing to assimilate so we can all be the ugly and assimilated same, but our policies and ideas are failing to treat the beautiful difference of human groups equally.
