"There is not a racial caste system in Latin America today. It existed, but it does not exist any more."
"That is the most ignorant assertion I have ever read in five or so years of reading AUE, WADR, and that includes the suggestion by one Californian poster that Roman Catholics should be disqualified from holding public office."
Then I assume that you have read very little in those last five years.
"The only Latin American societies that do not currently have pervasive racial caste systems are those few that do not have and never have had any substantial non-European-ethnicity population."
And which few countries are those? Are they in planet Earth? I think it is just the opposite: in the countries, as Bolivia, which never had a substantial European population, the power is in the hands of the very few European-descendants. On the other hand, countries that had a substantial European population, which mixed with the indigenous population, have nowadays a mixed population, and the ethnic origin is not as important as it is in other countries.
Caste system? As it was in India? You have never been south of Rio Grande, except as, maybe, a tourist.
"I've heard it claimed by leftists that Cuba abolished its racial caste system under Castro, but the fact that control ... one bearded cigar-smoking pointy-fingered fatigues-clad white guy (of Galician descent to boot, no?) for over forty years makes me skeptical."
I see. You are an anticastrist, and this justifies that you call "caste system" a society that clearly is not based in race.
"Anyway, I never wrote that we Spaniards have *never* been racists. I wrote that we are not racists *nowadays*."
"Read above: you said "we've never been racists"."
Really? Did I wrote that verbatim? I must tell my psychiatrist that I write things that I don't remember later (or maybe it is just that you understand what you'd like to read).
"You can believe me or not, or better, you can read historians on the matter, but indigenous Americans were never slaves in the Spanish colonies."
"Yes they were, though my understanding is that efforts to enslave the indigenous Americans were often unsuccessful (because they'd tend to kill themselves rather than endure slavery under the cruel Europeans), which is what led, in some places, to the preference for enslaving Africans."
Dead wrong. Indigenous Americans died because their immunological system could not endure infections that were common in that age. Nothing to do with giving them blankets used by smallpox sick people, as the USA's army did.
"In any case, if they weren't slaves in some places, they were hardly treated as equals of the Europeans. It's not accidental that Latin-American immigrants to the US are predominantly poor persons of largely non-European-ethnic ancestry."
It is not accidental at all: it just shows that, in Hispano-America, indigenous people survived to the point that nowadays they are in majority.
"It's not accidental that 'Latino' or 'Hispanic' came to be regarded as a quasi-racial group in the modern US; the ... persons were, in fact, of substantial non-European ancestry, descendants of, or themselves, victims of racism and racial-caste-ism of Latin America."
It is not accidental at all: it just shows that for many USA citizens it is necessary to label people ethnically.
"Slavery existed in *all* countries until the 19th century. Spain ... mixed with the poor Spaniards in those centuries without problem."
"Aha! If, as you say, Spaniards have no notion of 'race', how is it that you can speak of 'mixing with the poor Spaniards'"
If you want to take this conversation to a point where you say that I said what I didn't say, then you can keep on writing for yourself and your friends. I never told that Spaniards were blind to colours. I wrote that it is not important, as shows the fact that nowadays there is not distinct ethnic groups in Spain descendent from ancient slaves.
"the very way you frame the statement assumes that the black slaves in Spain were NOT Spaniards. Get's!"
Of course, when they were slaves they were not first class citizens. But when they ceased to be slaves, they had no problem to marry.
Anyway, you are out for me. I will not answer your answer, because you cannot read what I write without interpretating it the way you want.
Saludos cordiales
Javi
Conjunction of an irregular verb:
I am firm.
You are obstinate.
He is a pig-headed fool.