One of the hallmarks of conquistador mentality is the treatment of minority/ostracized groups as savages. The belief that there is something inherently deformed in the being of these others, therefore their very existence in the wider scope of things is judged using different rules. If they have something that the conquistador wants, then it is taken; if a crime is committed by one of them, then the conclusion drawn by the majority Voice is that all within the minority group is prone to exhibit the same animalistic behavior. An ugly cycle of thinking, but prevalent.
Take, for example, the recent manhunt that was underway in the Miami, Florida area for a suspect that killed a cop. The caption of his picture reads:
Or how about the Virginia Tech shooting from last spring? The media was tripping over itself to let it be known that Seung-Hui Cho was an immigrant from South Korea. It was a spectacle to watch copy editors embarrass themselves in public with their cultural ignorance; treating the killer like some exotic village dweller who, in reality, lived the majority of his life in the United States.
Coming closer to home, the Phoenix metro area is being rocked by a cop-killing incident of its own. This time, however, the target of journalistic laziness is too juicy, too convenient to pass up. It even makes the headline
The man who shot and killed a Phoenix police officer before he himself later was fatally shot by authorities was an illegal entrant, a federal official said Wednesday.
The wide brush of Manifest Destiny hath spoken. Its tip, dipped in a deep pool of arrogance, chooses to paint over inconvenient truths like institutional racism and xenophobia, and declare that, once again, “we” are in danger from some nameless (often brown) horde of criminals.
This is an issue that knows no politics unless it is used to corral the beasts imagined by the system in place. Bipartisanship is achieved at the expense of someone – Mayor Gordon is a Democrat – because as long as it does not disrupt the flow of money and influence, there is no stopping the carnage on the canvas. The masterpiece of a shining beacon society will only be completed according to the prescribed rules of the conquistadors. The paint used is among the darkest spectrum of human morality and its blot will find any way to divide.
“They were cursing, ‘ — — Muslim, leave Locust Valley, leave The Plaza. Go back to the place you came from,'” she recalled.
They scrawled anti-Muslim messages on her mirrors and tore the place up, she said. They also stole about $2,000, she said.
“They said if I call the cops, they’ll kill me and if I don’t leave The Plaza, they’re gonna kill me,” she said.
After they left, Assemi crawled to her desk and called 911. She was treated later at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and released. Police said they are investigating the attack as a bias crime.
Police are looking for two men: one was 5-foot-6, wearing a dark shirt and sunglasses; the other 5-foot-10 with a mustache and goatee, wearing a dark shirt and sunglasses and white shoes.
linkage (emphasis mine)
Their race is left out. One minor convenience for the conquistadors. Again, and Again, and Again.
Crossposted from Latino Político
Of course, this is nothing new
Great post Manny.
thx for reading, Steven D, and for your vigilance on fighting back against racial injustices
There’s a linguistic principle that posits an inverse relationship between the specificity of a referent and the power to which it lays claim.
Now, I hear you all say “Huh”? So I’ll try and unpack that a bit.
Referents range from the specific, like Billy Joe Bob, who is a unique individual, to the non-specific proverbial “they” – as in “they say”.
If I tell you that Billy Joe Bob said something, then the weight you give that opinion is based on what you think of Billy Joe Bob. Anyway, he’s just one guy. But if I use an unspecific referent like “experts”, or especially the terribly non-specific “they”, who said something or other, than I’m attributing that statement to some unquestionable “neutral” authority.
The same is true of race, gender and other attributes, in that the less remarked those characteristics are the more powerful that person is generally held to be. This linguistic slight of hand casts white middle-class males as “normal”, “neutral”, “central”, “generic”, etc. (and thus powerful and authoritative) by the absence of those terms (in the US, white middle class men are not even the statistical norm).
Anyway. It’s a longer discussion than I have time for right now since I have to cut wood, or freeze.
Getting chilly up there already, I hear.
No, I lived in NM many years ago, but I currently live in Tasmania – where it’s Spring, which means we can have sunny weather and snow all in the same day. [Note to BooTribbers: do not come to Tasmania in September; you’ve been warned.] There’s a predicted snowfall down to 1500′ feet later today. We live at about a 1000′. Of course, it’s sunny right now, and could stay that way.
At least I now have some more wood ready for the woodstove, should it decide to freeze later in the day.
Now, I have to go make some greenhouse shelves for my tomato seedlings, since they sure as shootin’ can’t go outside yet (I put them out too early last year and they got crozzeled).
hi keres, the system in place over here is based on alot of assumptions that in no way reflect reality for big chunks of the populace. The disconnect seems to be getting more pronounced as the Bush Reign of Terror continues unabated.
Yep, it seems we’re trying to prove the adage that it’s never so bad that it can’t get worse.
I’ve decided that the main appeal of conservatism is wholesale license to make shit up. The rest of us are stuck with messy and seemingly contradictory reality, which doesn’t always suit our self-image or our selfish tendencies.
To quote John Kenneth Galbraith:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Which is so much easier if you can ignore all the facts, or better yet, never even try to learn them in the first place.
Conquistador mentality on another, more pernecious level, is on display in Santa Fe every September in Santa Fe. Our cultural overlap here is complicated, but the annual celebration of the conquest of the native peoples by Europeans makes my skin crawl — especially the parade in which a statue of La Conquistadora, “Our Lady of Peace,” gets carried around the town. They have tried to soften the impact by naming an “Indian Princess” as part of the ceremonies. (Yuk.) No one is allowed to question the event. It is just the way it is here. But since no one will acknowledge what they are really celebrating, no on looks at the message that celebrates war and occupation.
hi Kahli, I hear you. Colombus Day is another one…
And Happy Thanksgiving to everybody, also. Now there`s a good one,”they” say. It`s all in who gets to write the history books, especially when the traditions of handing down knowledge by word of mouth was deemed “pagan & savage” by the white christian missionaries, or anyone else who could take advantage. The history written today is the the one you mention. That by including needless facts, as race or ethnicity, while omitting the same set of facts when it`s convenient to the writer`s, the compilation, as history, is just a similar canvas, albeit with fresh paint.
Hey Manny, good & appropriate diary today.
I’m re-reading a novel that I was assigned back in college, Almanac of the Dead that is just as powerful as the first time I read it. The widespread practice of cultural disintegration is central to the storyline. Highly recommend it
Adrienne Shelly
Personally, I think that New Yorkers, and Adrienne Shelly in particular, would have been better off if Diego Pillco had never gotten into the country. Does that mean I have a conquistador mentality?
yes.
what does his immigration status have to do with the crime?
that attitude is no different than this
The problem I have with this “conquistador mentality” meme is that it strikes me as analogous to being called anti-Semitic when you make any criticism of Israel. Apparently, according to you, anyone who says there must be some control over illegal immigration exhibits conquistador mentality.
no. not what i said. the conquistador mentality involves the blanket labeling of groups of people. tons of propaganda has been unleashed equating undocumented immigrants as criminals and terrorists, it’s xenophobic and often racist.
you didn’t answer my question. what does his immigration status have to do with the crime?
All right. I accept your denial and clarification.
What his immigration status had with the crime is that, by being an illegal immigrant, he was on the margins of society, and hence, it can be argued, predisposed to violence.
Illegal immigration is a problem because it keeps the wages of all unskilled labor down. It really is just a continuation of slavery: America never got over its addiction to getting labor out of a significant amount of its work force by paying it less than a just wage.
A good recent article on this problem is The Immigration Charade.
You are proving the point of this diary perfectly.
And you are confirming my suspicion that you are a zealot. My sentence which you quoted is no more biased than the proposition that sailors are more predisposed to violence than are bankers, which I think is a valid generalization.
My position has nothing to do with ethnic stereotypes and comes down to the general view that in a good society, everyone is integrated and can expect to live without experiencing excessive uncertainty about his or her future. You can’t have a society like that without restricting immigration.
meh, i’ve been called worse for better reasons.
your position is not surprising, given your use of code words like “good society” and “integrated” – you assume that your worldview/system is the one that should be used as the measuring stick. There are many of us who disagree.
Good! It seems we understand each other, and have agreed to disagree.
Still, I don’t really understand what you find wrong with my world view. I think Canada is a relatively “good society”, and it is multicultural, with significant numbers of people not even speaking very well the two main languages, as far as I am aware. I suspect that it has less poverty than the US does, and part of the reason would be that it does a better job of controlling immigration.
Another reason I’m against unrestricted immigration is that I think the US is overpopulated already: just drive during rush hour through any major city. Having significant amounts of people coming in to stay in the country is part of the larger capitalist trap in which you need to have endless growth of the GDP. But you will say I’m using code words again.
Actually, you’re less of a zealot than I imagined you might be, since my original post was obviously a deliberate provocation. It’s nice that one can have exchanges like this at BT without them turning into a flame war.
umm…
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door”
-from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
(on pedestal of The Statue of Liberty)
What country do you live in again?
That was always bullshit. America is based on genocide and slavery.
mm.. so we should maintain that tradition instead.
I so get it.
The point is that we have enough wretched, tired, and poor already. Instead of letting more in, we should improve the lives of those that are already here.
same attitude that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
student right where everyone could hear his cries means that we are ALL the new blacks on the block. Especially if we wish to exercise any of the bill of rights, like free speech!
the people in power are trying to catch as many fish in their hate-net as possible, the way liberals are treated in this country by the political class is with the same type of unthinking/immoral disdain as outlined in the diary, albeit for different reasons and without the same timelines.
Yes, as Ari Fliesher(sp?)infamously said…’be careful of what you say’..
Good diary Manny-I always look forward to your diaries.
thx, ink.
There’s actually more to the Conquistador mentality–although I don’t deny your arguments. The whole concept of “races” was invented by a 15th Century pope to justify slavery. It’s a justification to treat human beings not as savages–but as not human at all.
And it’s rising again, in so many ways. If you have melanin in your skin, if you are some normal variant of “average” (including smarter or more sensitive) you are not worthy of consideration.
I read Last Days of the Inka last summer. Frankly, I’m frightened. What have we become?
agreed, that’s why i characterize this behavior as just one of the hallmarks of the conquistador mentality.
thx for the info on the book, i’ve added it to my wish list for future reading.
I presume you’ve read 1491? It’s great, but more scientific. Lots of stuff about the fantastic genetic engineering of maize, squash, soil engineering…I’m a scientist by trade, and loved it.