Chile Forum

haole wrote:I am thinking of visiting, time and money being the constraints.

are citizens forced to buy health insurance or retirement policies?

larger and larger chucks of america are off bounds to whites, sections of cities, public school districts, jobs. Are there such limits in chile? Will i be beat up or robbed for being white or a gringo?

Do government benefits favor certain minorities?

i have two very small businesses in the usa, my tax form is 50 pages long. are chilean taxes such a pain?

haole wrote:

This is Chile, so get off the white-minority thing and start learning a new system and culture.

so there is no affirmative action or other gov programs so whites can pay their racial debt? In the USA whites are born guilty and are made to pay, that is the justification for affirmative action.

After they run out of haoles, katonks are next.

haole wrote:I was in Ecuador and they seem to have special government programs for indians. Bolivia I think also has something like affirmative action for indians.

These programs buy votes, they have to justified somehow, which leads to the politicians preaching white guilt, which puts those countries where the US is today, a racially de4ivided society.

If what I am saying bothers you you should try to explain yourself instead of banning me.

if Chile is better then ecuador or bolivia I would like to know.

Wowww cant even compare and contrast the racial environments without getting people upset.

California South wrote:

Wowww cant even compare and contrast the racial environments without getting people upset.

You misunderstand the reactions because you are not acquainted with Chile. Your questions are from a distinct US perspective. Leave ALL your preconceived notions behind, and ALL your US thought processes, both good and bad, and visit for awhile. Then you''l understand why everyone is puzzled by your comments about race. Chile is not the US. That's why many of us are here.

haole wrote:

You can't "stay away." Unless you stay away from Chile. See, you are applying US-centric thinking, that somehow things should be neatly confined, as in reservations, or ghettos. Nothing of the sort. In fact, my bank account executive in XII Región.... is Mapuche. And an OK fellow he is.

I am sure is is a fine gentelman.

In hawaii you can deal with decent people all day, we have no strictly segregated areas like the mainland. the same people listen to and vote for politicians that think the US is responsible for everything that ever went wrong here, from captain cook on, and should pay. They want to bring back segregation, Hawaiian only schools and voting. Hawaii used to give out different ballots to different races at the polling places, we had racailly segregated depts in state gov, dept of hawaiian affairs. decent people seem to get tricked by politicians that offer "free stuff" because of their race.

next strange question here is who is hawaiian, where most people are racially mixed. The democrats brought back their old friend from the US south, the one drop rule.

So in Chile how do you define a mapuche? most people are probably racially mixed. Is there some kind of one drop rule. If government freebies are associated with race then people suddenly find a distant ancestor to get "free stuff". The numbers of mapuche will grow quickly.

patagoniax wrote:

haole wrote: how many muslims in Chile

...
Chile has a significant though largely invisible Palestinian immigrant population. Out of the 800,000 or so Arabs (Arab descent) in Chile, the large majority are Palestinians. But many are not Muslim -- some have taken other religions.

gloriosopicante wrote:.... you'll have to worry about people of all the spectrum of ethnic origins trying to screw you up, or unwittingly screw themselves dragging you down.

patagoniax wrote:

wiscondinavian wrote: I thought that the Palestinians that moved here were by large originally Christians who lived in Palestine area pre-Israel-creation....? ..

There was indeed a lot of Christian Palestinian immigration to Chile around 1900-1930 and many of them belonged to Greek Orthodox churches. That was reflected in the Barrio Patronato in northern Stgo area where some of them settled. But there have been subsequent minor waves of immigration of Palestinians in the last 50 or so years. In Coyhaique there is a major Palestinian-owned food distributor and they very prominently fly the Palestinian flag. Literally, esp at their outlet near the Copec station on the south end of town where there was a huge Palestinian flag flying the last time I was up there.

The investigation into the Islamist funding issue hasn't directly implicated the Chilean Palestinians as far as I know and from what has been openly published. That money seems to have been coming out of Iquique and elsewhere in the north.

Since I mentioned Barrio Patronato, it may be worth a visit just for its amazing diversity and third-world flavour (mostly Asian). Lots of little discoveries and sights there, and some cheap clothing outlets and whatnot. Some gringos are uncomfortable about the smell and the zero personal space and elbow to elbow nature of the shopping/market areas. If you can get past the slightly grungy aspect there are some interesting little places to find "arab" cookery and ingredients as well as the newer Chinese and Korean eateries, mostly small and crowded. Some good pita-bread items. Beware the pickpockets and the illegal pirated merchandise.