White Hispanic Treyvon and Zimmerman

Welcome to my world, America!

I heard George Will on one of the Sunday morning talk shows (yes, I get the three major networks, plus CNN, plus HBO plus the news from France, Germany, Italy, and what there is of it from Venezuela)... referring to George Zimmerman as a "white Hispanic" -- he did so with a sneer in his voice, as if such a thing were not possible.

George Will is usually an eloquent commentator. I respect him even though our political points of view are radically different. But with this broadcast, my opinion of him dropped a few notches. He  has not met many folks from Argentina. Or perhaps he simply does not consider Spaniards "white". United Staters really need to travel about more.

Francis Robles, an excellent journalist now at the Miami Herald, did a wonderful series on Afro Latinos. The piece on the Dominican Republic, here, might help inform Americans about the delicate and broad issues of race in the hemisphere.. and particularly the Spanish - African  issue that is now coming to light in the States.

Undoing the bonds of slavery is our collective legacy, our history since Africans were first imported to the hemisphere - starting here on Hispaniola in the early 1500s.  We have discussions here over who left a worse legacy - the British, the French, the Spanish, the Portugese?

Heretofore, we collectively have only dealt with the British legacy, which created the apartheid like structure inside the US colonies.

Here is a primer on the French system, put in place in Saint Domingue.

Never too late to learn, George. Never too late.

It is not just black and white ... but rather shades of brown.