Finding Family Ties to Indian Slavery in New Mexico

It was quite complicated, with different names for the different caste systems. Essentially though, the more white you were, the more privilege you had.

Before the US Civil War, it was somewhat the same in the US. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule :

> free people of mixed race (free people of color) were considered legally white even if individuals had up to one-eighth or one-quarter African ancestry (depending on the state).[5] Many mixed-race people were absorbed into the majority culture based simply on appearance, associations and carrying out community responsibilities. These and community acceptance were the more important factors if a person's racial status were questioned, not his or her documented ancestry.

After the US Civil War, the powerful whites in the US South worked to undermine the rights of free black people. Among other things, many states passed "one drop rule" laws, where any African or Native American ancestry (except descent from Pocahontas) meant that one was black.

Quoting again from that Wikipedia page, "Among the colonial slave societies, the United States was nearly unique in developing the one-drop rule ... The same racial culture shock has come to hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned immigrants to the United States from Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and other Latin American nations. Although many are not considered black in their homelands, they have often been considered black in US society."

And to blame something which happened hundreds of years ago, is to ensure this problem never gets resolved, because making poor choices is easy when you don't suffer the blame.

It's similar to how conservative Christians have fetishized Jews and Israel, which is partly a result of conservatives latching onto this victimhood trend--victimhood by proxy. I used to work for a pro-Israel non-profit foreign policy think tank. Much of the staff was Jewish, and a significant portion (though by no means the majority) of operating funds came from Christian Evangelical donors.

My manager once recounted a trip to a Christian Evangelical conference. One of the booths had a Shofar, a ram's horn traditionally used in Jewish religious services. People were lining up to blow it. The whole scene in full context came across to him as very... let's say crass and awkward and perhaps borderline racist. He wasn't personally offended and wouldn't have considered it "wrong", per se, but I think it suffices as an example of how fetishization of status and identity can result in recapitulating the same sins that ostensibly drew attention, interest, and sympathy.

I think the previous poster's point was that because our culture fetishizes victimhood, our culture incentivizes people to identify with victimized groups who really have no understanding of either the historical or, especially, modern persecution of the group, and especially the most worse off in the group (no group is homogenous). They co-opt the identity and then purport to opine on social and political issues from a privileged position, often to the detriment of the most worse off individuals in the group. Eventually self-appointed supporters and defenders begin to do the same thing.

There's a fine line between drawing attention to legitimate social issues by popularizing group identity, and the broader culture wresting the autonomy and self-determination of a group. Native Americans, perhaps more than any other minority group in this country, should be aware of this phenomenon, as every red-blooded American with a 5th grade education purports to understand the mistreatment of Native American tribes, and yet our laws to this day often continue to get worse!

It's great that many, say, victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment can now find _empowerment_ in open association with other similarly harmed individuals. But make no mistake, the broader culture (of both men and women) has already begun co-opting this particular trend. It's always two steps forward, one step back.