Toni committed the crime of being a Spaniard so he deserves to be a miserable teacher paid the minimum wage. Let the colonizer suffer
I know this is a joke but I just want to take the opportunity!! to say that sometimes anti-spanish feeling in this fandom makes me uncomfortable especially when it comes from WASPS/Christians non-Catholics because the sentiment is literally based on eugenics, racism, islamophobia and anti-semitism and everyone knows this and they just use Spanish people (who are conveniently “white” and western european and “colonisers”) to mascarade their gross prejudiced views of other groups
Literally the reason Spaniards were demonized (not just within the context of the black legend!!) was because they were considered half jews/half moors/half africans. That’s why they were labeled as “barbaric”, “uncivilized”, “uncultured”, “backwards”, etc. Those are the exact same adjectives used to describe people of color during the ages of colonialism and imperialism.
This is on Wikipedia. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s just that I’ve noticed that the fandom has a completely different way of poking fun at the colonizers between Spain and the others. Ask yourself, what’s really hiding behind this bias?
Edit: crap I’ve realised I posted the old version. It’s already implicated but I also wanted to add the point that the reason it makes me uncomfortable it’s because those are pretty much the same arguments used against my people and other POC. That’s why seeing folks (of any race tbh because people of all skin colors can and still are unfortunately islamophobic, antisemitic and racist towards Africans) acting all quirky and woke shitting on Spaniards. They’re just using them as scapegoats.
Hi! OP I just wanted to add to this because I agree with the sentiment at hand ultimately and agree that a lot of Hetalia fans really don’t examine their own biases, especially with xenophobic sentiments like this. I see it commonly with Russia, Lithuania, and Poland where people write Russia as violent and the other two as dumb and incapable or extremely feminized in a way that reeks of anti-slavic/anti-polish sentiments. And I definitely agree the fandom gets to comfortable writing Spain off as a colonizer over England, Netherlands, FRANCE, and even America and it’s uncomfortable.
However, I do think this could have been worded/written a little differently because the current structure (without reading your tags) comes off as if you’re saying it’s bad to call Spain a colonizer period… which is what my initial reaction was when I read it until I saw your tags which made me go “ooooh”.
Your post just came off unclear until I read the tags and it might be my own processing issues, but I was sent this post by some friends who were a little concerned as well and so I think it’s best to mention in this case you’re discussing the way they write Spain vs The Other Colonizers instead of only discussing Spain which comes off as saying calling him a colonizer at all is problematic.
I’m saying this POC to POC just because the post came off a bit like when white people speak over POC by mentioning white minorities which, by reading your tags, I now understand was not your intentions at all.
Historically, it’s undeniable. The English made their own actions towards the Indigenous people seem more civil and kind by demonizing Spain entirely and writing them off as savage barbarians. And while yes, the Spanish were goddamn awful (I know this as I am Latine and the product of colonization), it’s ridiculous how the English used the Spanish as a way to make their own actions excusable. And this is reflecting a lot in how the fandom writes these characters now.
It’s Europe. England, Spain, France, Prussia, etc are colonizers and it’s really important to not pretend that they aren’t or to bash one and then praise the other high. England and Spain both fucked over the world and to put England in a better position than Spain as a character is fucked and absolutely rooted in these sentiments. It’s HEAVILY present in European treatment of Southern Europeans.
I will never deny that.
Other than the initial confusion, great points. 100% agree. This fandom really needs to step back at times and pay attention to what they’re doing and how they write some characters compared to others. I’ve had similar discussions when it comes to Romano and how he is written compared to Veneziano
Sorry for the lateness! Reblogging for this important addition and once again as lluvia stated to clarify that I’m not saying that calling Spain a colonizer is wrong and inherently anti-Semitic/islamophobic/racist, but that there is a dangerous tendency in this fandom in its depiction of Spain (as a colonizer and otherwise!) in contrast to the other Europeans.
As an obvious example just see fanworks of Spain with any of his (former) colonies versus England with the FACES family (or any other colony tbh). I don’t think I need to expand on that.
Spain’s “otherness” from the rest of Europe is very much a fabricated concept since the dark ages when Spain was under Muslim control (and wasn’t even a country!!) and the sentiment had two revivals, 1) during the age of colonialism (i.e. protestants claiming the Spanish were commiting attrocities (which they very much were) due to their “pagan” blood while they themselves were doing exactly the same things) and 2) in the 18-20th centuries during and after the decline of the Spanish empire + during the imperialist movement of orientalism, with a new narrative that Spanish people had been civilized by an outsider force (the exact same narrative the Europeans used on the peoples of color they colonized)
I was aware of how poorly worded my OG post was (I wrote it on a whim during a slow class) but didn’t realize it could be misinterpreted especially if you didn’t read the tags.
You worded it much better than me 😭 I’m glad you understood what I really meant despite my messy post and thank you for taking the time to write much more concisely than I did!
And yeah! The bit with Russia and the Slavs and especially with the Italies is something that always bothered me as well. I was so happy to know that Hima had the attention to have Romano have a darker complexion because of his Arab heritage but the fandom instead butchered up his characterization and…. Is it really a coincidence that the ones with darker coloring are depicted as violent, agressive, lazy and uncultured (this is especially true with NI and SI) while the ones with lighter coloring are depicted as righteous, intelligent, honest and hardworking?
Tl;dr: “spain sucks” and “western anti-spanish sentiment is rooted in white supremacism” are two statements that can, and do coexist. Spanish people weren’t even considered culturally or biologically “white” by Europeans and Americans until like. They joined the EU lol
Also here are some asks I got in the meantime 😬😬😬😬😬 I doubt the people who sent them will actually see this but tbh they just proved my/our point. I can’t bring myself to actually answer them. Love this fandom lol
I was going to write a long ass answer to all these nonsense. Because seriously, this is all nonsense. Only the first one does make some sense, though not in the way anon think it does. Number 3 is specially painfull for it describes pretty much the opposite to what actually happened. I really was going to answer all these questions because I’m done with people just not knowing Spanish history yet feeling entitled to make all kind of fantastic asumptions based on 16th century Protestan anti-Spanish propaganda and 19th century dumb racial theories. Worst is, they don’t even know where their stupid assumptions are really comming from and they trully believe this was all down to Europeans being shocked at Spaniards’ brutallity, instead of what it really was about, Europeans being shocked at Spaniards’ willingness to mix and coexist with Native Americans, and to a lesser extent, with Jews and Muslims. And I know I said this many times, but I really invite everyone to read 19th century racial theories and what those people thought of the “Spanish race” (raza Hispana), Spaniards, and Native Americans. You may learn where the (in)famous term “Latino” came from as well. A clue, it is not nice.
Again, I was going to write this long ass review, but this is tumblr. Literally, just by reading the paragraph I wrote above I’m sure I could get people comming down to me saying things like “Spaniards did no coexist with the natives, they oppressed them” and “They did not mixed, they raped the native women” and whatnot. Which doesn’t mean that there wasn’t oppression, nor rapes (during the war of conquest specially), but that’s history for you. You can’t reduce history to that. Or you could, all human history could be reduce to that. Point is, I’m not going to change anybody’s mind by refuting one by one all the stupid comments above. On the contrary, I would get people feeling personally attacked, and therefore, clinging to their ideas and refusing to listen to any point of view that is not their own. Again, tumblr, not worthy. So I will say just one thing. Look up LAS LEYES DE INDIAS. Do it. And then think about any other country, nation, human group, whatever, that has anything similar to the Spanish legislation of Las Leyes de Indias.
Have a nice day.
Some other sources (just to get some general ideas, they are not history books, and it is a real pity I couldn’t find a complete translation of these laws into English):
https://www.britannica.com/event/Laws-of-the-Indies
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/12/the-laws-of-burgos-500-years-of-human-rights/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valladolid_debate
By the way, here you go Spanish universities in Spain’s transatlantic former territories (in which Native Americans could study, though, of course, only the nobility had actual access to higher studies, just like Spaniards, and the rest of the world):
