From the New York Times, another #MeToo moment:
Junot Díaz Steps Down as Pulitzer Chairman Amid Review of Misconduct Allegations
Leaving aside the #MeToo stuff, what’s interesting to me with my fascination with dogs that don’t bark is that, apparently, nobody had thought there was anything in this talented Dominican-born novelist’s outspoken anti-whiteness that ought to at least raise questions about his racial biases (such as his tin-eared denunciation of “unbearable too-whiteness”) when it comes to heading an award-giving process, such as his being Pulitzer Prize board chairman.
As far as I can tell, nobody dared mention this question publicly. If anything, Diaz’s public stance of anger against whites was presumably seen as a good thing in his judging awards.
Commenter Anon writes on the awkward paradoxes faced by somebody like Diaz:
Maybe the guy is a jerk, and I haven’t read all of OSCAR WAO, but the first chapter was tour de force. Great stuff.
These mixed Latinos are awful confused. They are fallen imperialists. They conquered so much and subjugated so many people. But they mixed with the people they conquered and enslaved. So, whites and those with lighter skin cling to their privilege in their own domains. They prefer being white or light than dark or black. Also, Spain, once the greatest power in Europe, became one of the poorest and most backward.
But in the US, they feel a double layer of resentment: As inferior whites and as non-whites.
As Latin whites, they feel inferior to Anglos or gringos who did so much more. They feel swarthy and tainted. Also, if they’d counted as white or light in Latin America, they stick out as non-white when they move to the US. Latinos are people who want to look white and be with whites but count as non-white.
So, they accuse white Americans of ‘racism’. But they are plenty ‘racist’ against darker-skinned people in Latin America. They accuse white Americans of what they themselves are ‘guilty’ of in Latin America and far more blatantly. Because they feel this ‘insult’ — even when white Americans show no hostility to them — , they tend to identify with non-whites than whites. Most Hispanic whites pretend they’re People of Color. But deep down inside, they know Latin America is a place where people want to be white as possible.
They want to come to the US because White Americans did so much better. So, they appreciate the US. But then, they also want to see White America destroyed because its success is testament to the utter failure of Latin America. It’s like an ugly woman who is obsessed with a beautiful woman and gazes at her in admiration but also wants to see her dead out of resentment.
It’s further complicated because white Americans, who’d been gloriously race-ist in the past, are now promoting Diversity and POC, the very stuff that so many Latinos are trying to get away from when they come to El Norte.
Now, if Latinos were honest about their feelings, we could all arrive at some kind of understanding. …
