chapotraphouse

Look, neither you or I get to define what "the West" means. It is a racist concept, but that's the unfortunate reality of the situation. "The West" is not defined by who thinks they should belong to it, it's defined by the material reality of exploitation. It's nearly synonymous with "Imperial Core." If you're in the periphery, you are not part of "The West" no matter how much your society mirrors so-called western culture. Just as a regular worker is not part of the bourgeoisie no matter how much they want to be. There are the exploiters and the exploited. Latam, on the global stage, is exploited by the imperial core and there is no escaping that fact. The exploiters will never see it as part of their club because they're exploiting it! It's not like we (hexbears or leftists in general) see this as a good thing or want to perpetuate it. We want to tear it the fuck down. But we can't deny material reality, and it seems like that's what you're trying to do by insisting that Latam is western and getting mad at us for the fact that it's largely racism that determines who belongs to the in-group "Western" and who doesn't.