Blanqueamiento

Blanqueamiento in Spanish, or branqueamento in Portuguese (both meaning whitening), is a social, political, and economic practice used in many post-colonial countries in the Americas and Oceania to "improve the race" (mejorar la raza) towards a supposed ideal of whiteness. The term blanqueamiento is rooted in Latin America and is used more or less synonymously with racial whitening. However, blanqueamiento can be considered in both the symbolic and biological sense. Symbolically, blanqueamiento represents an ideology that emerged from legacies of European colonialism, described by Anibal Quijano's theory of coloniality of power, which caters to white dominance in social hierarchies. Biologically, blanqueamiento is the process of whitening by marrying a lighter-skinned individual to produce lighter-skinned offspring. Peter Wade argues that blanqueamiento is a historical process that can be linked to nationalism. When thinking about nationalism, the ideologies behind it stem from national identity, which according to Wade is "a construction of the past and the future", where the past is understood as being more traditional and backwards. For example, past demographics of Puerto Rico were heavily black and Indian-influenced because the country partook in the slave trade and was simultaneously home to many indigenous groups. Therefore, understanding blanqueamiento as it relates to modernization, modernization is then understood as a guidance in the direction away from black and indigenous roots. Modernization then happened as described by Wade as "the increasing integration of blacks and Indians into modern society, where they will mix in and eventually disappear, taking their primitive culture with them". This kind of implementation of blanqueamiento takes place in a societies that have historically always been led by 'white' people whose guidance would carry "the country away from its past, which began in Indianness and slavery" with hopes of promoting the intermixing of bodies to develop a predominantly white-skinned society.

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Concepts associés (3)

Usurpation raciale

L'usurpation raciale est un phénomène majoritairement présent aux États-Unis qui se produit lorsqu'une personne classée comme membre d'un groupe racial se fait passer et est acceptée en tant que membre d'un autre groupe racial. En Louisiane, le terme anglais « Passing » ou « passe blanc » était utilisé pour désigner une personne de couleur ou d'origine multiraciale assimilée à la majorité blanche, alors que les conventions juridiques et sociales de l'hypodescendance classaient la personne en minorité, sujette à la ségrégation raciale et à la discrimination.

Colonial mentality

A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one's own. The term has been used by postcolonial scholars to discuss the transgenerational effects of colonialism present in former colonies following decolonization. It is commonly used as an operational concept for framing ideological domination in historical colonial experiences.

Noir (humain)

Le terme Noir est employé, dans le langage courant, pour catégoriser un être humain caractérisé par une couleur de peau foncée. S'il désigne souvent des êtres humains originaires d'Afrique subsaharienne, ce terme peut être utilisé pour qualifier des personnes asiatiques (Dravidiens, Négritos...) ou océaniennes (Papous, Aborigènes, Mélanésiens...).