The arrogance of some Spaniards

A Spanish Internet troll who is well-known among Spanish-speaking Filipino web users for his contemptible arrogance took offense at my usage of the words “racial caste system” in yesterday’s blogpost. In the said article, I showed a classification of racial mixtures in Filipinas during the Spanish times. But according to this arrogant friend of ours, it was not a system but a denomination. And worse, he accused me that it was my intention to insult, in an insidious way, those Filipinos who lived during that time.

Like, wow. As if all the stuff that I’ve been scribbling on this blog (and Alas Filipinas) for years were all for naught.

I am not as fastidious as this guy is with terminologies (we once had a useless argument regarding the real meaning of the word hispanista). But I think he missed the point of all this (my fault, because yesterday’s blogpost had no explanatory notes). The reason why I wrote that article is to serve as a guide to those few readers of mine who are still uninitiated towards that part of our history’s racial categorization.

Let me put it this way: many Filipinos today think that José Rizal was brown-skinned, that he was moreno. Heck, he was not. He was tisóy because he was a tornatrás or a mestizo terciado (take not of this, Alden Richards). Same case with Padre José Burgos. He wasn’t brown. He was white.

So, the above-mentioned cases are the main reason why I came up with that blogpost which irritated our arrogant Spanish friend. The purpose on my part was not to imply that there was some kind of hierarchy in place. But to some extent, there really was some sort of racial hierarchy, though not profoundly similar to the caste system in India and other similar cultures which, I suspect, is what this arrogant Spaniard had in mind. The one in India was the classic caste system, a case of social stratification. But yesterday’s blogpost did not describe any social stratification at all. It was strictly racial, meant for taxation purposes. As such, it was a colonial caste, very far from the one he had in his twisted mind. But because of an arrogance innate to his being, he totally forgot (or maybe he didn’t know at all) that during the latter half of the 19th century, there was an intense racial rivalry between the Español Insular and the Español Peninsular.

When our country was still ruled by Spain via the Virreinato de Nueva España (México), choice administrative and military positions here were held mostly by Spanish insulars (who called themselves “Filipinos”, the first to do so). But when México became independent from Spain in 1821, Filipinas came under direct rule from Madrid. Our country’s Gobernador General during that time, Mariano Fernández de Folgueras, was loyal to King Fernando VII de Borbón. Fernández de Folgueras was the reason why we did not become part of the First Mexican Empire. He then proceeded to give administrative posts to his fellow peninsulars, thus angering the insulars who had been holding on to such governmental positions for ages. This racial rivalry, spurred by the arrogance of the peninsular and the molested feelings of the insular, caused the Andrés Novales revolt of 1 June 1823.

So even if I did not use the term “racial caste system”, we can see that there already existed some sort of “hierarchical arrogance” going on. I did not imply it. It was already there. Our arrogant Spanish friend just didn’t notice it because he was so obsessed with using John Bowring to take potshots at me. And Bowring, being English, surely had the Indian caste system in mind as well. Anyway, while this hierarchical behavior may have already dissipated today, whatever “peninsular arrogance” of Mariano Fernández de Folgueras had still exists up to now and has evolved into a much wicked form within the pompous minds of certain Iberians such as Rafaél Martínez Minuesa and other uncultured Spaniards. Some sort of sick legacy, I suppose. Whereas the arrogance of Fernández de Folgueras was borne out of patriotism to Spain, Martínez’s arrogance is meant to glorify himself as a hostile Don Sabelotodo. But thank goodness that there are only a handful of these unlikeable Spaniards, like small pebbles on boiled rice. Because most of those who I met easily became my friends. As a matter of fact, I have encountered only two pendejos españoles in my lifetime: Martínez and his mentally disturbed friend, Dr. Emilio Soria. Both of them, most especially Soria, have a history of disturbing peaceful conversations in many a Facebook group dedicated to the return and/or promotion of the Spanish language in our country. All the rest I have met, online or in person, are warm-hearted.

But the most laughable attack which our arrogant Spanish friend hurled at me can be regarded as a backlash against himself because he committed a classic error in logic called the slippery slope fallacy. Based on yesterday’s blogpost, the arrogant fool concluded that I was “trying to judge the people of that time by today’s standards. It’s like saying that they were so backwards back then because they had no computers, without mentioning that no one had them.” But, my golly, it is quite obvious that yesterday’s blogpost was an unopinionated one (again, my bad). Those racial classifications were hard facts, without a grain of opinion from my part. So how in the life of me could I even try to judge the people of that time the way this arrogant peninsular is now judging me?

Goodness gracious, this guy’s dumber than I thought he really was. This obnoxious character is the type of Spaniard which makes Filipinos embrace the leyenda negra even more.

Speaking of John Bowring, this Englishman’s observations here about the lack of racial prejudice is nice, a good revelation, a must read. But that was just one foreigner’s observation. Our arrogant Spanish troll mustn’t have heard of other visitors that we had such as German Fedor Jagor who wasn’t as delighted as Bowring during his trip to Filipinas. Needless to say, I am on Bowring’s side. And I would like to reiterate: whenever I use the term “racial caste system” to pertain to our country’s racial classification during the Spanish times, I do not have other cultures’ racial caste system in mind. Ours is a very peculiar and benign one.

I guess this arrogant Spaniard needs to study first what Spanish castas were before he starts ranting again like a weasel on my Facebook page.

Y ¡basta ya con este Seminario de Inodoro y otras formas de baladronada! ¡Nosotros filipinos no los necesitamos!