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Category: Rants & Vents

Being fetishized because of your race or ethnicity

So, I'm Panamanian, Native American, and I have no clue what my southern family is. Whenever I tell people I'm Afro-Latina (because those were my dominant genes) people always automatically apply "the hot mami", Yeye, or Chicha standard. I especially get told "Oh that's why you're so sassy" when I'm literally just being confrontational because I don't like little issues boiling into big ones and I'm not aggressive when I do so. Men especially have told me they get "turned on" thinking about me cussing them out in Spanish which is just odd to me.Ā 


Another side of the same coin is when people don't like my presentation and they expect the 50 inch black straight hair, light skin, huge butt with no waist, and a faja on. Some people are so mean when they don't think I "look Latina enough" even though I specify I'm Panamanian and most of us are black or mixed race. It's just so ignorant especially considering most of Latin American and the Caribbean countries have completely different or loaded histories. It's literally brainrot to hear somebody's lineage and immediately connect that to a stereotype that extends to completely different cultures unfairly.Ā 


I especially hate when other POC do it because we've all been marginalized and you're comfortable with placing harmful stereotypes onto groups you don't even belong to. Like what if I started walking up to other black people and started asking them where their 2 inch nails and Brazilian weave with huge hoop earing and hoochie clothes when that clearly isn't their presentation of themselves (and there's nothing wrong if it was)? What if I walked up to an East Asian person and asked where their Mangas were? Let's just all please stop reinforcing harmful narratives about already marginalized groups. It gets tiring.

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