Do you know how to refer to Black people in spanish? (Genuine question)
@insertspanishhere
The political term is Afro-whatever country or Afrodescendiente (Afro-descended)
The general term for a non white person casually referring to a Black person is moreno (Moroccan) or sometimes I’ve heard Central Americans say “piel-negra” (dark-skinned) to distinguish from themselves as dark skinned indigenous people. Brazilians use pardo except that term is from medieval Spanish for a brown animal so I’d be careful there.
Black Spanish speakers say Negro amongst ourselves and I personally let my allies say it.
Under no circumstances use negrito/a/e. That’s blackie. Never use “Los negros,” that’s “the blacks.” Typically if you say something like “el negro,” one specific black man, the addition of the Spanish “the” is alienating and thus roughly the equivalent of calling someone a hard r slur.
Say “las personas negras” “communidad Negra.”
Persona is a femenine word derived from Latin. It is not necessary to change the word to “persone” to refer to someone nonbinary because the word has just been that way since Roman times and adding an “a” on it doesn’t mean you’re talking about a feminine gendered person.
Pardo in Brazil is a term for someone that's mixed race. Any type of "race mix" but mostly used for white-black mix. You can you both 'preto' and 'negro' for black people. 'Negro' is a word mostly used for race, while 'preto' is mostly use for the color black, there is some debate regarding if we should use 'preto' or not. I say is fine, (if you're brazilian and thing differently please comment about it).
Under the IBGE (Gorvenamental Institute of Geography and Estatistcs) Negro is everyone who's afrodescendent and has the an 'african phenotype', and is used as a umbrella term that includes both 'pardo' and 'preto'.
Brazil colonization was done differently from the USA, everyone in Brazil is mixed (and I fully mean everyone). We don't have the 'one drop rule', we've mixing since the first invasion (by violence/rape), Brazil's transatlantic slave was MASIVE. By 18th, black people were 80% of the population, we're the last country in America to abolish slavery in 1888.
There's a LOT of debate to say if 'pardo' is a valid term or not, because was used to separate black people from their identity. Mixing was used as technique to 'whiten' the people so we mostly classify black people by who they look, because since everyone has 'black blood' and you have to decide which people are more deserving of humanity of not, so by phenotype you go. By IBGE 45.3% of the population considers themselves as pardo
Also, in Brazil's northwest we use 'nego/nega' a lot, 90% of the times this is NOT a indicator of race but a endearment term (note that the northwest has biggest black and pardo population of Brazil). And we use this for everyone, doesn't matter if you are black or not it's like the British say 'luv'. I find it charming, and I say that everyday for the people I love.
'Negrinho/Negrinha' is always derogatory. But if you are a child in Bahia, you may be called 'neguin'/'neguinha' is mostly a endearment term
Of course is always more complex than that but i'm generalizing. Feel free to add!
