Sounds like another Kyle Rittenhouse.

This reminds me of the type of language used within Blue Lives Matter and militaristic alt-Right groups to describe their camaraderie. It serves to strengthen bonds and link them to that of a familial tie. This allows for the excusing of violence in the name of self-defense while also weakening their ties to being forces of terror.

Phenotypically-driven violence has existed for ages and has proved time and time again that it is a violent attack on someone's right to exist in the body they were born in. This reminds me of this article published in the Public i from 2011, in which the “Secure Communities” program resulted in a mass of wrongful detentions of Latinx residents of Urbana-Champaign. A woman named Maria was wrongfully held in jail long after the 48-hour period in which ICE was supposed to pick her up. Both the sherriff and leuitenant (spelling?) in charge were extremely dismissive to her rights, aiming to keep the single mother jailed indefinitely if it weren't for the help of the local community. Disgusting.

I'm curious to see what is argued in the view that Latin@s will eventually assimilate with the Europaean majority that was once segmented into multiple othered groups. I agree with Hernandéz's use of Fanon's quote, as it exemplifies that one's Black/brownness are inescapable to the opressor. No matter how "white" one presents themselves, the oppressor will see past that because one's phenotypical features serve as a marker of illegitimacy to their capabilities of success. Europaean groups that were once minorities were able to surpass that due to thier whiteness, whereas groups with more "ethnic" features cannot escape their classification of other.

This reminds me of the countless times I've been micro(and macro)aggressed. When I was 14, I went to a garage sale in the suburb of Niles, IL. I elected to play the alto sax in my beginning band class, and just so happened to find a cute saxophone pin at the sale. While making small talk with the older white woman running the sale, she said "Oh! That's so unique of you to play saxophone, you don't see that from Mexican girls". My expression as well as the silence to follow caused her to fumble in a poor explanation for her comment, which felt lowkey empowering. Despite that, it served as one of many moments that proved to me that opressors see my successes as prefixed by my ethnic identity, not prefixed by my own abilities.

Philosophical dualism