One thing that I find particularly interesting in how many Latin Americans have been talking about racism (anti-blackness in particular) after what happened between Mbappé and Gill / Mbappé and Amarilla / the French national team and the Paraguayan national team is how they don't believe that anti-blackness exist in Latin America and that we're ("we" as in black people mostly) reading this situation through western lenses. What makes it interesting is that it creates an alternative version of history where Latin America doesn't share a common past with European colonial powers. This is totally ahistorical and illogical. Though I might understand why they are reacting this way, it simply is a reality that anti-blackness is global. Every country, no matter its involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, in slavery, in colonization and what not has inherited some sort of racist framework. In the case of many Latin American countries, they inherited the Spanish racial caste system and then went on to encourage European migration in order to make their population whiter. Those politics directly impacted Black and Indigenous population as the goal was to get rid of them. To this day, in many Latin American countries, black people are facing more injustices and violence than the rest of the population. Latin America is anti-black just like the rest of the world is, and it has its own history of anti-blackness just like many other regions. Pretending that it doesn't and that anti-blackness is purely western because "at least Latinos didn't put black people in zoos" is simply ridiculous. Especially when it's done to powerscale racism, as if we black people should be happy that some forms of anti-blackness are supposedly less dehumanizing or whatever.
Anywho, I stand with Mbappé and the French national team. No hate against the Paraguayan team, they played with a lot of passion, but I do think they were too violent at time. I don't blame the French national team for not shaking hands with them afterward because if someone had hit me when I was running, and I didn't even have the ball I would have been pretty mad too. So I can't blame them. I won't blame the Paraguayan team for being upset either. Though, going on a racist rant is never justified.
The fact that the Paraguayan government has had to talk about the ethics of calling a black person a chimpanzee for five hours is so ridiculous I don't even know what to say. A lot of people would argue that the government doesn't represent its people, I would argue that the government always represent a part of the population to some degree. I'm not saying the whole of Paraguay is violently anti-black and against legislation against racism but a part of the Paraguayan population definitely is. A part of their population see their political thoughts reflected in racists senators like Amarilla just like many Amerikans see themselves in Trump and just like many French people see them in their far-right party "Rassemblement National". We needn't act as if people don't see and support far-right senators and that they just come out of nowhere especially when they're gaining more and more support worldwide.
