It has been difficult to write this without feeling like I am speaking out of turn. As our black brothers and sisters mourn and grieve, and invite us into their spaces to seek justice for George Floyd, I am trying my best to amplify their voices, to protect their environments so they have the resources they need to be heard. This has been a moment longtime coming and their rage, their pain, is something that is reverberating throughout communities across America and becoming our rage and our pain.
Because of this, I want to speak to my Latinx folks. I want to speak directly to my tias and my tios, to my primos and primas, and nuestros vecinos. I want to speak to my brown family, my brown neighbors, my brown friends, my brown colleagues, my brown community, to all of my Latinx people with immigrant roots.
More than ever, it is time to evaluate how our words and our actions propagate anti-blackness. Too often, in an effort to assimilate into the United States, our families pick-up and teach the racial bias that this country has upheld for years. The Latinx community involuntarily contributes to the harm of the black community by trying to earn the respect of our white oppressor. We distance ourselves from our black brothers and sisters and regurgitate the same racially charged language that has kept this system intact. Maybe mami and papi keep commenting on the criminality of the black community. Maybe abuelita keeps saying, "ya sabes como son los negros." Maybe tu hermanito raps along to the n-word in a song. Maybe la tia is uncharacteristically afraid of her black neighbors.
In all candidness, I am not trying to dig up racial grievances or open old wounds. What I want is for my community to begin a difficult process of self-examination, of untangling the bias that has seeped into our lives so we can offer earnest and genuine support to the black community during this time of mourning. To me, it is hypocritical for Latinx people to march or protest or post about justice for George Floyd if they are unwilling to confront the anti-blackness present in our homes, in our circles of friends, in our schools, and in our networks.
As a people, we have seen our share of prejudice and dehumanization. We know what its like to be on the periphery, to always feel like strangers peering in. We know what its like to fear for our children and our families, to be targeted because of the color of our skin. I need my brown folks to remember those experiences when they muster up the courage to have these difficult discussions with the people they love. I need you all to remember what its like to be told you do not belong, to be told there is no place for you on this soil.
A few days ago, I sat with my family and we talked through what we were seeing. It was almost instinctual for mami and papi to say this was not our business, to pay their respects but admit no responsibility for the state of the world outside our front door. "Que vas a hacer aya fuera con esa gente?" papi said. Esa gente, esa gente, esa gente.
This was evidence that being complacent is effortless. Being silent is easy. Its painless to wipe your hands clean of this injustice when it isn't your mother's blood on the pavement, when it isn't your brother's body that takes a bullet, when it isn't your father begging for breath. Its simple to turn a blind eye when its esa gente who is suffering, when its not you who is suffering.
So a few days ago, when papi distanced our family from this problem, I told him about the burning house. I told him that as this country went up in smoke, there were people on the street trying to put it out, while we were the people fanning the flames. We were the people who didn't want to acknowledge that the fire could reach our home, that we could easily be burn victims too.
It is imperative that we recognize that this sickness was not born in the US. Racism is not exclusively housed by the red, white, and blue of these borders. Latinx folks need to realize that we all come from countries embedded with white supremacy, and our countries of origin have shunned our Afro-Latinx family as well. Latinoamerica is plagued by colorism; even the harmless nicknames abuelita uses are rooted in racist sentiment-- "mi negrita," "mi prietita."
Undeniably, it is divisive to keep pretending that the black community does not have a space at the Latinx table. For years, the experiences of our Afro-Latinx brothers and sisters have been invalidated and even silenced. It is egregious to keep othering Latinx people with African ancestry. They are not other. They are not esa gente. They are a part of our history, our communities, and our futures.
To my Latinx folks, I want to say; its time we stop drawing invisible lines in the sand. Black people have always been nuestra gente. They've always been on the front lines fighting alongside us when it was our house that was burning. So now, it is time to ask; What is our role in this movement? What is our responsibility as these graves are dug?
First and foremost, I want us to acknowledge that este momento no se trata de nosotros. This moment is not about us. This moment is not about the brutality at the border, about the children in detention centers, about the police abusing Latinx bodies. This moment is about black lives. This moment is about a black man begging for his life on the street while men in uniform watched on knowing that this justice system would protect them. This moment is about George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, who were all victims of state sanctioned violence. I want us to acknowledge that saying BLACK LIVES MATTER is not the equivalent of saying Latinx Lives Don’t Matter. We cannot play into these racial trappings that pit marginalized communities against each other.
Second, it is our responsibility to educate each other, not only on the history and trials of the black community in the US, but on the history of Afro-Latinx people in our countries of origin. La historia aframericana es la historia Latinoamericana. We cannot rely on traditional schooling to teach our children fairly; the US public education system is plagued by white revisionist history that paints racism and civil struggles as mementos of the past, even though we are currently living through the symptoms of a sick and broken system. This is a list of ANTI-RACISM resources.
Third, Latinx folks need to be more sensitive when engaging with black art. Too often, some Latinx people feel they are given a "special pass," to use the language and aptitudes of the black community, when in reality, we must be respectful of the boundaries they set. When we engage with black art and music and culture, we must be aware of the deep historic ties and generational trauma that much of it is rooted in. Thus, Latinx people are NOT allowed to singalong to the n-word during songs performed by black artists, much less use it in conversational context.
Fourth, we have to donate our time and money to black organizations and black owned businesses. Especially during a pandemic, we need to encourage economic solidarity in order to maintain and cultivate the diversity of services our communities have access to. If you have the resources: donate to bail funds, recovery efforts, and community enrichment organizations. Locally, we need to become patrons of black owned restaurants and family-run shops. Online, we can show our support for black artists and creators by sharing their work and encouraging our friends and family to browse their projects.
Fifth, we have to advocate for legislative change that prioritizes restorative justice and established accountability in the police force. Our civic duty is to protect each other and because of this, registering to vote is no longer enough. We have to act locally-- we have to contact city council members and demand they stop funneling money to police departments that only serve to harm our families. Across the nation, there are petitions to defund and deconstruct policing services. There are petitions to seek justice for individuals harmed by police brutality. There are organizations dedicated to racial justice. And in Congress, there is an effort being made to create legislation against police brutality.
And finally, we have to hold each other accountable. As we have seen before, the indignation over this type of wrongdoing often flares but simmers out. We cannot allow for this movement to become a hashtag that only captures our attention when another black body hits the ground. The loss of black life is not a trend we should be comfortable with. Our outrage and our demand for justice cannot be performative; it should not be contained to social media. Our earnest work toward being anti-racist needs to happen at the dinner table, in our neighborhoods, in our classrooms, in our work place, in our bedrooms, in every place where black life is made invisible.
For Latinx folks, our strength has always stemmed from our families, from our ability to love upon our own, and do good by those closest to us. We have always been taught to keep our circles tight, to mind our own business and go the other way during times of trouble. I know this silence has kept us safe, but it is this silence that is now contributing to the brutality our black brothers and sisters are facing. We have to do better by them because they are a part of our family-- our strength is their strength, our pain is their pain, and their liberation is our liberation too.
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