One of the aspects of today guest lecture on discrimination that really resonated with me was the topic of intra-group discrimination (ex. discrimination between latinos) and inter-group discrimination (ex. whites discriminating against latinos). First of all, during lecture the speaker mentioned that darker skinned Latinos face more discrimination in the United States, demonstrating a form of intra-group discrimination. However, from the reading for last week, we learned that in fact darker skinned Cubans faced similar discrimination in Cuba from their lighter skin countrymen, demonstrating a form of intra-group discrimination. This suggests to me that there may be international discriminatory factors that pervade our societies. Rather than simply looking at discrimination by region or even by country, we can observe discriminatory trends on a global basis. Because of this, some forms of discrimination that we may view as "intra-group" or "inter-group" may be classified as such only because of the region in which they occur. This occurrence seems to especially hold true in the case of skin color, where all over the world, darker skin people seem to face more discrimination.
Another concept that I feel was not mentioned much in lecture was the effect of context (geographical location, demographics, etc.) Although the effects of language, phenotype, and gender on discrimination were mentioned, I strongly feel like context of the discrimination may be one of the biggest factors in the manner in which it occurs. For example, discrimination faced by a Latino laborer in New York would probably be less severe than the discrimination faced by a Latino worker in a Texan border town. This would be due to the fact that Latino immigration is a much bigger issue in those areas, and people would correspondingly have much stronger feelings about it. Therefore, I believe that the context in which the discrimination occurs may be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, factors in how severe the discrimination is.
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I agree with what you pointed out about the intra-group discrimination among the Cubans. It does not surprise me that the lighter-skinned Cubans would be discriminating against the darker-skinned Cubans because this trend seems to be present in most Latino communities. This is especially true in Mexico, as well. The lighter-skinned Mexicans tend to stick together away from the darker-skinned Mexicans, at least from what I have personally experienced and seen. This intra-group discrimination is a very important part of the definition of discrimination because, then who becomes the "dominant" racial group here? Both groups are Cubans, then does it depend on which group has more members? Like you said, it all depends on whether this is observed on a global basis or a regional basis. This is all very interesting to me.
You are right about geographical area being a big part of discrimination. The same was also true for African Americans, who, even still today, face more racism in the south than in the north. Obviously, during the civil war era, there was much more racism and discrimination, but even today, those racial undertones still exist.
Another two reasons for discrimination would also be class and assimilation. A latino family that does not speak spanish in public and adopt a more "American" way of life, seems not to face as much discrimination as latinos who do not assimilate as well. Also, latinos who are more middle class, and have middle class careers, tend to face less discrimination as lower class latinos. This may have something to do with assimilation, but it definitely could be a seperate factor as well.
I agree that skin tone color is a key factor of intra and inter group discrimination. This idea holds true within the Black community. I know blacks that resent their darker skin and constantly use creams to bleach their skin.
Many (blacks) feel this skin complex root back to slavery and beyond. For example in high school a teacher assigned students to write a paper and reflect how being enslaved would affected our psyche. During class discussion another black student objected to my argument of being dehumanize because my lighter skin would have allowed me to be a house slave and would not have experienced equivalent hardships to field slaves (the series of the class was able field slaves).
Also inter group discrimination holds true because the lecture discussing mezcla/mestization emphasize the hierarchy of lighter origin. So skin tone is a universal view of beauty and hierarchy.
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