Carla Marinucci/SF Chronicle misleads about the phrase "la raza"

Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle offers '"La Raza" defined', a supposed attempt to define the term "la raza". She misleadingly states (sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=28138):

Literally, yes''la raza'' is ''the race.'' But what it means: ''my people, my community,'' as in ''my peeps,'' or the Italian ''paisanos.'' As a Spanish-speaker myself, I can attest: this is one of those phrases (think outside the box) where the literal translation isn't accurate... ''La Raza" as it is used by organizations, disc jockeys, musicians, and in common conversation doesn't translate into -- as many of the critics in my mailbox suggest -- an Arayan Nation-style racial supremacy reference.

Whatever its origins (which may include supremacism along the way), the word "raza" signifies that someone is a member of a certain group and that group is almost always differentiated from others by racial means. What Marinucci fails to address is Obama's attempt to declare himself "raza", when no one who's generally considered to be "raza" would agree. The word doesn't just mean "people in general", or "my peeps", or "my friends". It means people who share some characteristics, and those characteristics are at heart defined by race.

For instance, few of those who are considered "raza" would consider an Argentinian of German descent to likewise be "raza". A similar example comes from the the meanings of the German word "Volk"; while it may mean "people in general", it also means the set of Germans and those of German descent.

To pretend that "raza" is something other than racially exclusionary is completely false, and Marinucci is just a hack who's lying in order to support the National Council of La Raza.

Immigration2008a · Mon, 07/14/2008 - 17:48 · · Importance: 4