re: #210 Gus

A lot of people don’t realize my wife is non-white. I don’t consider myself ‘white’ on a personal level, not just because of my Jewish heritage but because of my ancestors who worked on sugar plantations in the Carribean, Jewish-Hispanic slaves in all but name in the hot sun. They were definitely not white in that lifestyle.

Me, I get to sit inside and when I go out I get to slather sunscreen on. But if I didn’t have that luxury, if I had to till the fields, I’d be nut-brown and most would call me not white.

These things are all such fictional fuckeries. I never really want to call myself “Hispanic” because it feels like I’m assuming some role that I have no real part in, but I fit the definition. Is it better for me to say that I’m Hispanic, to show people who broad that definition can be, or for me not to, out of respect for those for whom ‘Hispanic’ is a very meaningful term?

None of this would matter if it weren’t for the racists and the legacy of centuries of racism.