17 January 2012, 4:02 am
A very dear friend of mine the other day, an American, referred to me, as an "African-Portuguese", to which I replied: "What did you just say?" lol And then I went on to further explain that in Europe we don't do that, and that subsequently I am Portuguese period, because in Europe we go by what our passport says, and it's about nationality more than it is about ethnic origin. An African descent person in either Spain, Portugal or England is just, Spanish, Portuguese or English. In Europe we don't need to wear a tag on our foreheads, we make it simple we don't do that. That is an American tag, so it kind of got me pissed at first, first that he didnt know that, and second, that he wanted to transport it onto me. Later I realized that I had to respect his own views of the world, the ones under which he was born, understand and just explain how it works where I come from. "There is nothing about Africa neither on my ID card, nor on my passport, because I was born in Portugal, and lived my life there, and in all frankness I have never even been to Africa, and whereas I am just as fond of my African origins as I am of my Portuguese ones, I am simply Portuguese, and not "African-Portuguese", because that doesn't exist. That's an American thing that you Americans do. But the rest of the world doesn't. And to be quite honest, it's not that I give any importance to being Portuguese either, it just happens to be what's on both my passport and ID card! So my question to you is: Why is it that the land of the free so fixated in branding, tagging and cataloging people so much!? What if I go to the US, what will people call me within the realm of their society? Latino, because I'm from a Latin speaking country, African-American, because I'm mulatto, (even though I am obviously not American lol). Seriously, and who the F... cares, other than, again, Americans?? Haven't they, Americans, learned anything from Charlize Theron's statement? Before acquiring the American nationality as well, she was simply African, period. She was born in South Africa, so she was African, not "Euro-African" like Americans would probably call her according to their logic, given that she is white. Facts are she was just African, because that's how it works with the rest of the world: people go by what their passport says. And now the only reason why she has called herself an African-American was because in the mean time she did acquire the American nationality, which does give her a double nationality (which might have made a few red neck heads' explode I'm sure). Seriously why is it that Americans feel this need to brand themselves and the rest of this world as if we were all cows that HAVE to belong to a speciphic heard? Because mind, origins wise, some of us simply dont. See my family is so mixed by now, that originally we could just be a map of the world (its not just African and Portuguese blood that goes through my veins), and do Americans even know about this, about people like me? Or maybe they don't, because they are just too busy branding the cows. And mind, us the rest of the world do have things like History and cultural and ethnic origin diversity, and issues that come with it too, in buckets. It's not just the US that is a racial melting pot anymore, and it's not just the US that has had and still has racial issues to solve. However, we just don't use tags, because that would make life unnecessarily complicated, and at times also unfair. We simply dont do that to ourselves in Europe, it's already as hard as it is sometimes why make it stupidly complicated? Tagging oneself should be the most stupid and dumbest fault a human being can commit against himself, and not to mention a really confusing one too! But if you can give me a reasonable explanation why I wont say another word about it, and even give you a best anwer if it sounds plausible the enough. Anyway, thank you. @ By famous Gilbert: I didnt want to get many answers, dear, just the one, the right one, and I think I just did. Posting a long question is actually a great way of making sure that you are not going to get plunged with piles of useless crap, like your answer just was. Tk u. lol... Read More »
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