#(I absolutely do not intend to ignore his identity as a specifically asian person however)

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hi bookwyrm! it’s the ”Tam in Kotlc frustrates me” anon. I didn’t say this in the first ask bc it was so long, but yeah Tam always seemed vaguely uncomfortable to me. He’s actually my favorite character bc when I first read the series as a little kid, it was the first time I’d felt understood (I have GAD but it wasn’t diagnosed for a long time, and bc of that I was very closed-off and spent a lot of my interaction with people feeling like I was acting.), I was super excited to see him more because to little-kid me it was like seeing myself for the first time. Granted, he barely showed up unless there was a disaster or something, but I reread the scenes he was in a million times over when I was younger. Anyway, his kidnapping hurt to read bc I made that connection when I was little, I’m very glad legacy didn’t come out back then bc I probably would’ve cried lol.

oo welcome back!! hello!

this is incredibly accurate--kinda what I was trying to touch on with the "he feels like he's in a friend group where he only knows one person and is bluffing his way through it" comparison, but you've worded it really well. i mean, we saw in Neverseen that he "didn't give [sophie] permission to bring anyone else" (paraphrased), and was uncomfortable with everyone else being there. he just kinda got thrown into everything and had to go along with it

but I 100% feel what you mean about that being understood part of it! there's something so comforting about characters who just...don't perfectly mesh with the group, who are part of it but not in sync, just a moment off. I also have gad, so those kinds of characters were just like ah, there are other people who don't know how to people either. i didn't talk to a lot of people, and just tried not to talk in general because I didn't know how. like what volume, what topic, what vocab and slang do they use, will I know the subject, should I face them, will anyone else be part of the conversation, what if i'm wrong? and so on and so forth, you know?

tam's out of touch characteristics can kind of mirror that and make him easier to relate to. I'm very glad you had that relation and saw yourself in the series! I think in general he's has a lot of qualities we can relate to. personally, he's just the closest thing to me in the series, so it's really interesting to see what else draws people to him

i've reread the series so many times and I just remember always being like ah yes. tam. there he is. excellent. I like this scene more already. although it wasn't great when he was being kidnapped. that scene hurt, like I was so frustrated with Gisela because my dude! no! leave him alone! can we not just have one thing! do you gotta take him??

tam just has so many details and little things that we can identify and latch onto because we see ourselves in them!! it is apparently tam hours right now and I am absolutely not mad at that

(i got a little distracted while answering this so if I missed something please feel free to come back and remind me to go back to it!!)

#i don't know about y'all but 'white girl working with the government' never stuck with me as much as 'poc person who's been wronged and out #cast by society for something unfair and isn't quite sure what they're doing but they're fired up about it' #(i know he's specifically asian but right now I'm using him being poc to appeal to a larger audience as a mexican person who doens't see #themself in 100% white characters with no brown characters in the series) #(I absolutely do not intend to ignore his identity as a specifically asian person however) #not that sophie doesn't have relatable qualities #there's just something that doesn't fully click with her for me the way tam does #i am attached to him #i care for him greatly #just the depth #so good #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #tam song #kotlc character analysis #quil's queries #frustrated tam nonsie

[untilourapathy]

Navigating a white space as a PoC

This comes after a 7 hour conversation with the lovely Anna @pukingpastilles. Bear in mind that this is drawn from our specific experiences and may not be universal. We hope it resonates with some of you.

Scrolling past this is an act of white privilege.

A lot of people either see race as irrelevant or that we talk about it too much in our ‘post-racial’ age. However, for us, it is our daily reality. We cannot choose to switch off our race, and thus cannot remove the burdens that accompany it. We do not have the ‘luxury’ of ignoring race. Until then, we’re going to keep talking about it. You may want to ‘skip the drama’ but it is a privilege for you to be able to scroll past this. It is our very lives that you are scrolling past. We are attempting to argue for our right to exist in this space. The topic of race is extremely underdiscussed in fandom discourse. Some people either see race as not relevant to fandom or something that they think they’ve sussed because they’re ‘open’, ‘liberal’ or have a PoC friend or something. That’s very different from actively educating yourself on issues that affect us beyond what you see in the news or from history. That’s good, but there’s more. Just because you’re socially liberal does not excuse you from perpetuating the cycle of racism. We have to fight to validly exist, and that is exhausting. Existing is exhausting.

Being a PoC in a predominantly white space is an act of protest as our very existence is politicised.

It can never be just a story of two people, not when we are so burdened. You are never just yourself, race comes first, and you are never not conscious of this. A PoC would be constantly hyperaware of their race because it informs how society treats them in every way. You are always self-conscious about things like not associating with too many people of your own race in case it comes off as threatening or exclusive or discriminatory. You subconsciously make adjustments to blend into the space as much as possible in fear of offending somebody, such as changing your accent or clothes. You feel a constant sense of double alienation. You occupy a liminal space. You are the hyphen in the Asian-American. We are marginalised, Othered. We are never granted full rights to exist independently of a Eurocentric standard.

Frank, outright racism does occur. And it sticks with you.

Whether or not you are easily hurt, it does stay with you subconsciously, and just reinforces this concept of your being lesser. It’s even worse when the target is someone you care about. You never forgot those moments. Moreover, microaggressions, ignorant comments, stereotyping and subtle prejudice can be just as bad. You have to work twice as hard to get recognised, and one thing do wrong completely discounts everything you’ve done. We are gaslighted, invalidated, discriminated against because of our genes…

You are seen as a representative of your entire race.

There have been incidents where I see a fellow person of my race on public transport, or in that room, and silently hope that they don’t do anything ‘embarrassing’ or ‘out of the ordinary’ because it would reflect badly on me. Watching the news, every time I see someone of my race do something awful, my heart drops not only due to what they did, because no matter what, their race is highlighted and I feel like this reflects on me. The onus is always on you, to conform, to fit in, to be as least foreign and Other as possible. However, your behaviour will never eradicate the fact that you will be judged. Or, you will be judged as ‘good for a ---‘. We must make a good impression to offset the automatic prejudice before they have met us.

Internalised racism has led us to believe we deserve our treatment.

Family can sometimes be the worst perpetuators of the cycle, as in their bid to give us a better life, they seek for us to fit in to a certain standard (especially with colourism). The effects of colonialism etc have shaped the way people view the white hegemony, and subconsciously we believe that we are lesser, less beautiful, less valid, less human. Furthermore, we’re grateful whenever an ally joins our cause, because we have got used to seeing our treatment as what we have to settle for. Even as adults, Anna and I still feel uncomfortable with our features because they do not fit the European standard of beauty, despite rationally knowing that it is just a subjective, culturally imposed standard. For example, we are keen to wear glasses because we feel so negatively about our eyes due to that ingrained internalised racism. By sole dint of having European features, the irrational part of me with that engrained white supremacy with never think of myself as pretty enough in comparison to white girls. You feel off-brand, broken and like something is wrong with you, even as a very small child. My friends still have to call me out for hating on my features too much. It makes for a very difficult relationship with your family, your sense of identity, home and how you see others of your own race. The onus is on us to accommodate white fragility.

That’s why representation is incredibly important.

Every time I read a fic with representation, no matter how small or how large the issues are explored, the twelve year old me within me tears up a little because for a little girl growing up assuming every character was white until disproven, I remember hunting library shelves for books with any PoC that weren’t stereotyped, reading those few books over and over again just so I could relate to somebody in the media I consumed. For all the little children, and for the children inside us all, please make an effort to reflect the way society is today. Your work makes a huge difference to us, our self-esteem, how we see ourselves. Every instance of representation is something that sticks with us forever. You will have made such a difference in people’s lives. If you’ve made a difference in mine, you must’ve for somebody else. Please. If your art or fic has helped someone deal with the implications of being PoC in a world of white hegemony, I personally think it’s worth the hate that you’ll inevitably get. Every fic or art that involves a PoC has been automatically politically charged, and there is a meaning and purpose behind it.

Often it’s said that a character is not PoC in canon, and thus shouldn’t be in fic.

Well, lots of the things that people do in fic isn’t canon. White fragility is real; a fic that removes every aspect of the character’s personality, or behaviour, or introduces A/B/O or sex pollen or talking hats or removing magic in the HP universe, for example, is seen as more acceptable than making a character PoC. Saying that a character can be turned into a wall or a pancake but not a PoC is to invalidate our experience as less than valid.

How should I write PoC in fic if I am not a PoC?

Perhaps see this comment I made on @gracerene09‘s post here. I am all here for the normalisation of PoC in fic. It doesn’t have to be tackled in depth in every fic. But due to the dearth of authentic representation in fandom, I think it has to be explored. However, please be diligent about how you explore racial issues if you do choose to. Race cannot just be switched out, you must deal with the implications – your heritage, culture, background, experience of the world all shifts. To lend authenticity to the experience you are trying to convey, please research eg please don’t fall into the trap of white saviourism, etc. Also, please don’t use epithets unless is it absolutely integral to the story. If we know the character’s name, there is no need to write: ‘‘Yes, please’, said the Indian man.’ If you are nervous about representing a PoC character without that experience, ask a few friends or try engage in discourse. It is better than remaining in ‘respectful’ silence, because then you are complicit in the greater systemic problem. To pretend race doesn’t matter is to say that we are all treated equally. The experience of being PoC is being hyperaware of your race constantly and that feeding into everything you do, regardless of how mundane, so there is no conceivable way that a PoC's character's every move in a world with white hegemony would not have been influenced by society's perception of their race. To pretend racism doesn’t exist is to dismiss societal racism and our everyday experiences. To be honest, racial issues are an inalienable part of the PoC experience, and thus I think they should be explored. 

HARRY POTTER SPECIFIC DISCOURSE

How would the race be treated in the wizarding world?

There is no canon on this, so this is all my personal conjecture. However, I believe that Petunia’s treatment of Harry could easily be understood as racist as well as prejudiced based on his magic, should you choose to see Harry as a PoC. Harry can be an anglicised name (from Hari, which means Lion in Sanskrit), or Harry could’ve just been named Harry. It’s totally possible for someone to be named Harry and be PoC. Blood purity was intended as an analogy of racism to begin with, and the stigma of being mixed race and that balance between two worlds is not incompatible with canon. Say Harry is desi – the Potters could have gained their wealth from the days of colonised South-East Asia. Also, to say that it is unrealistic for there to be PoC in the Wizarding World is a bit rich, considering as the Wizarding World defies gravity etc. Plus, looking at the census, the nineties had about an 8% ethnic minority population. I think the percentage of PoC characters in HP is less than 1%, although do tell me if I’ve done my maths wrong.

Blaise Zabini: Class, status and race in the upper echelons of the Wizarding World

Blaise Zabini is at a very interesting intersection between various social constructs. He’s chummy with the upper class and the Sacred 28, and grew up in the Wizarding world. He is wealthy, thanks to his mother, and is very posh. However, as a black man, in my eyes he is almost certainly Othered. This is just my personal interpretation, but I think Blaise would have to emphasise his poshness to validate his place in the Pureblood bubble, and yet he would always be subconsciously othered, one’s Otherness can never be erased by looks, class, status, wealth or intelligence. Although race would not be the primary optic that people are discriminated against, I think that it still would be one of those open secrets that blood purity could sometimes be conflated with. I think that is why being both elite and PoC is such an interesting intersection to occupy. In a manner of speaking, I see Blaise to be akin to Othello – accepted because he has his merits but his entire character and experience is so heavily tinged by being black in a white space. This would be especially if the Pureblood set is meant to parallel aristocracy. I doubt the Draco, for example, would say anything intentionally racist to Blaise, but he seems to more the exception to the rule. This social mobility may be because he is a ‘foreigner’ from Italy, and thus his race is ‘excused’ because I very much doubt a PoC family could rise to such extreme heights in medieval England like the Malfoys. Say racism didn’t exist, in an extremely hypothetical scenario, being the minority would still affect you in power dynamics.

Hermione Granger as a Muggleborn PoC

Should you see Hermione as a PoC, she would then be doubly discriminated against. I would believe it to be inconceivable for there to be two parallel societies, of which there is interaction and immigration, existing in the same space where race would not matter in one where it would in the other. Blood purity does not matter in the Muggle World because they do not know of magic. This is not the case with race. Especially given Britain’s empire, it would take lots of worldbuilding for one to believe that the Muggle community at one point owned 25% of the globe but the Wizarding World was a happy little content republic. The twin lenses of blood purity and race is something that cannot be ignored, and that intersection has deep impacts upon a character’s identity. Hermione would be forced to go above and beyond to justify her existence (hence her fear of being expelled) and then would be called out for not fitting in by trying too hard. Being dismissed for the smallest of things is very real because as a PoC, everything is your fault. As a PoC, this behaviour would be normalised for her because she, even at 11, would be so used to accommodating to fit Eurocentric notions.

Cho Chang

This lazy orientalisation naming is another example of JKR being a white feminist. No PoC couple in the 80s would have wanted to draw further attention to their child’s race. To better integrate to make their life easier for their child, they would have not chosen Cho as an extra obstacle for her, I don’t think.

Colourblind casting

Adding onto above, I don’t think we can give JKR credit for being a progressive, intersectional feminist in the books if she retroactively showed love for black Hermione. I love that she did that and could be one now, but a lot of HP does not show due diligence in portraying characters of colour. The thing about a white character being casted as another race is that usually, that is fine because their race is incidental, and was not a defining aspect of their character or experience because white people in white spaces do not face the same institutionalised discrimination. When a PoC character is played by a white person, it complicates matters as their experience as a PoC in a white space is integral to their experience of the world.

by @untilourapathy

#racism #race #poc #representation #diversity #harry potter #hp #fandom #fic #mine

[213hiphopworldnews]

Ariana Grande’s Use Of Hip-Hop On ‘7 Rings’ Is More Complex Than A Stolen Flow

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Ariana Grande’s new song “7 Rings” was out for only a few hours before it began to draw numerous comparisons to other artists’ existing songs. Princess Nokia flat out accused Ariana of co-opting her 1992 Deluxe song “Mine” in a video posted to Twitter, while Soulja Boy fans — perhaps energized by his wild week of over-the-top interviews and loud reminders of his own influence — linked “7 Rings” to Soulja’s 2010 hit “Pretty Boy Swag.” Still other fans pointed out similarities between Ariana and Nokia’s songs and the 2011 2 Chainz mixtape single “Spend It.”

About the only influence anyone can agree on is the interpolation of the melody of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound Of Music, the only directly credited song aside from “Gimme The Loot” by The Notorious BIG. The issue has once again rekindled the cultural appropriation debate which has dogged pop music singers since pop music became a widely recognized musical genre dating back to the 1960s. However, this time, the furor surrounding “7 Rings” does more to highlight how much more complex and nuanced that debate has become — and how much thornier it stands to get in the very near future. As hip-hop becomes pop — and vice versa — the discussion will need to encompass plenty of new facts that may make its participants more uncomfortable than ever.

The way we debate practically any issue online practically strips the idea of nuance away from almost any discussion. Everything feels increasingly polarized; you must take a position and stay there, pulling as hard as you can to convince others to join your “side,” whether the issue is as multifaceted as politics or as silly as pineapple on pizza. In the case of cultural identity and appropriation, it can seem as cut and dry as “don’t wear Native headdresses as your festival costume” or as obvious as “white people shouldn’t say n—- at rap shows.”

However, when the discussion wades into murkier waters like the influence of hip-hop on pop music, it can become difficult to hash out just where the lines are — or if there are any at all. For example, just a little under two years ago, Miley Cyrus’ then-recent about-face on using hip-hop to sell records, resulted in plenty of places calling her out for discarding her “love” for hip-hop with a poorly described, ignorant dismissal of the genre that proved her appreciation for it had been surface level at best.

Just months later, fans did the same with Post Malone, who had likewise downplayed his connection with the genre with a dismissive interview response that highlighted how performative his use of the genre might often be. It seems that for many pop acts, hip-hop is good enough to stoke record sales, but not enough to build enough understanding to avoid flat, reductive, cliched criticisms of the genre’s artistic merits.

well …………. ‘twas a pretty rough day in nyc. my friends took me to tiffany’s. we had too much champagne. i bought us all rings. it was very insane and funny. & on the way back to the stu njomza was like ‘bitch, this gotta be a song lol’. so we wrote it that afternoon. https://t.co/CoczmPj1Fo

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) December 1, 2018

The problem is, no matter how shallow pop musicians’ understanding of hip-hop is, it’s undeniable that hip-hop will continue to have an influence on pop music. In fact, even hip-hop artists like Juice Wrld have begun to reject the “rapper” label in an effort to expand on their potential audience, which has expanded far beyond what it could have been 20 years ago thanks to streaming. Streaming itself wouldn’t have been possible without Soulja Boy, who broke through as one of the first truly viral acts of the 2000s. As hip-hop mainstreamed in that era, taking over MTV and radio — and becoming a more-or-less on-demand service thanks to Youtube — nearly every person living in America would have been exposed to just as much hip-hop as rock or any other genre, especially as it cross-pollinated with those genres through collaborations and influence.

So when “Pretty Boy Swag” was all over the radio in 2011, it’s entirely possible that it had an impression on Ariana Grande, who would have been 17 years old and squarely in the MTV/TRL demographic at the height of Soulja Boy’s popularity, and on her co-writer for “7 Rings,” Njomza, who is just a year younger. They also would have been among the first generation of teens to heavily use Youtube and similar services for music discovery — like the kind necessary to have picked up flows from 2 Chainz and Princess Nokia. While we’ll likely never know if they specifically set out to mimic those flows, it makes perfect sense for them to do so because those songs, which they might never have been exposed to in the early 2000s, are well within their sphere of awareness now. The flows in question have, in fact, become so prevalent in hip-hop, it’s possible that the “7 Rings” writers may not even have been entirely aware that they were doing any rappers’ specific cadences and more so imitating it subconsciously, through three or four other layers of influence.

But don’t think that lets them off the hook for using content and context responsibly. Nokia’s argument about the similarity to “Mine” was less about the cadence of the bars and more about the subject matter. As “Mine” praises women of color and their hair — which is often berated for being “unprofessional” — her concern seems valid. The “7 Rings” line “You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it” lands awkwardly as hell on my ears, knowing that my cousins have all complained about having their decision to buy weaves and wigs criticized just as much as wearing their natural hair. I can only imagine how it feels for Black women themselves. Yet I’m also very aware that European-descended women like Ariana wear extensions as well — even though their hair is viewed as the default beauty standard already, they like to change up their look as well. I can see both sides, but I also see why one side can find themselves hurt by something that was likely never intended to do so.

i wouldn’t have made this celebratory bop or feel ‘okay’ these days w/o my brilliant, gentle and funny friends who get me drunk, write songs w me & help me heal. i am tremendously grateful for u. pls support them in their art: @TAYLAPARX @VictoriaMonet @NJOMZA @Kaydenceis

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) January 19, 2019

These are the kinds of uncomfortable truths we have to face as our world becomes more interconnected and the lines that once delineated cultures start to blur. Could Ariana and Njomza have been more mindful of how a very, very hip-hop-oriented song might want to err on the side of caution? Absolutely, because although hip-hop is culturally ubiquitous, it’s still stigmatized, and some of their pop peers’ unfriendly appraisals of the genre highlight how it’s still being used as a phase for white stars. To be fair, Ariana apologized for her stumble and for announcing the release of the video with a copy+pasted Japanese script that rankled some Asian American fans online as well.

Unfortunately, hip-hop’s predominantly black fans and most hardcore adherents are still being mischaracterized and demeaned by the musical establishment itself. But because hip-hop has basically become pop, we have to be prepared for more pop artists to draw influence from the genre and that they rarely, if ever, mean harm. With America’s history of abuse of people of color, it’s hard not to take it personally. But with enough of these teachable moments, it’s possible that we can define new defaults and a culture where those stigmas are truly a thing of the past.

source https://uproxx.com/hiphop/ariana-grande-7-rings-appropriation-accusation/

#hiphop #hip hop legend #hip hop history #hip hop #music #trending #hip hop news #ballin #hip hop scen

[noicon]

“A matter of death and death”: Confronting anti-black racism among Latinos . ------------------------------------------------------- 😨🙄👉For some of us who grew up in Latino families, anti-blackness was firmly instilled in our minds from a young age❓😨 [ A.BOGADO ] -------------------------------------------------------

For some of us who grew up in Latino families in the United States, anti-blackness was firmly instilled in our minds from the moment of 😩👉birth. Among siblings in the same family, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and sometimes parents themselves can become fixated on a child’s complexion. In Spanish-speaking households, I’ve heard countless phrases such as, “She’s pretty, even if she’s black.” Meanwhile, the white standard of beauty translates into preferences — up to and including increased emotional availability — for white, or whiter children.

Though many of us experience it within our families and in our day-to-day lives, anti-blackness among non-black Latinos often remains unexamined. We’re not necessarily proud of these practices and rarely air them publicly, though when we are called upon to shake these practices, we often dismiss the conversation.

But as Latinos become an increasingly large part of a non-white majority in the United States, we must remain vigilant about anti-blackness in our families, communities and movements, or risk a future of our own making in which black lives are treated as though they do not matter. While George Zimmerman’s vile vigilantism is an aberration, we need to admit that people like him, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are not total anomalies; we need to admit that they are like some of our own family members who murmur slurs, lock car doors and cross streets to avoid black people.

When we begin dating, some of us are told that we have a duty as Latinos to “mejorar la raza,” which means, “to improve the race.” This is sometimes directly told to us, but also inscribed in comments about other couples. I remember when a friend’s mother casually commented on her nephew’s choice for a partner, and rhetorically asked, “He’s so handsome, but why is he with that black girl?” Those observations, and countless others, communicate the expectation to make our future generations whiter. Dating can lead to marriage, which can lead to children, so the message we are expected to internalize is that Latinos should literally become as white as possible over time. “Improving the race” can mean dating and marrying whites only (including white Latinos) — and specifically staying away from indigenous, black, Asian or mixed potential mates; in this hierarchy, white is the most desirable condition, while black is the least.

But people are actively critiquing the ways that some non-black Latinos perpetuate anti-blackness — particularly on social media, where black Latinas especially have led the conversation. On Twitter, black Latinas like @bad_dominicana put vital pressure on our biases. When @bad_dominicana tweets about anti-blackness, the response from non-black Latinos is varied — but always complicated. The first line of defense is usually an attempt to derail the conversation and draw attention away from anti-blackness and toward absolutely anything else. I know this because this is exactly what I did when @bad_dominicana questioned my own anti-black bias.

When Russell Simmons published his horrid “Harriet Tubman sex video,” I tweeted that it illustrated that women of color are never safe, even in death. @bad_dominicana pointed out that it was imperative to specify that this was about black women in particular.

After trying to derail her critique — initially by bringing up abuse against Native women — and feeling confused for some time, I came to see that @bad_dominicana and other black women who had made this distinction were right: I was making an argument that all women of color are somehow the same. We’re not — and making that distinction, especially in reference to Simmons’ video, was crucial. The lesson felt difficult for about 20 minutes. Soon enough, I realized that I was nervous only because I allowed myself to listen to the very women I purported to want to represent by taking Simmons on.

We don’t always listen, however. Sometimes we derail, we push back and we refuse to take black women seriously. Time and again, I’ve seen @bad_dominicana called jealous, hateful and angry by non-black Latinas on Twitter despite the fact that her tone is often thoughtful. But, for far too many people I’ve seen engage with her on Twitter, it seems that the fact that she’s black automatically weaponizes her words. This distortion becomes the pretext by which to dismiss or even ridicule her.

When I address the issue of anti-blackness on social media, my interactions are almost completely positive. In fact, I’ve seen some of the same non-black Latinas that attack @bad_dominicana embrace me. Even though I’m a non-black Latina — or precisely because I’m a non-black Latina — it’s as if only I can make legitimate what black Latinas have been tweeting. Accepting my tweets, but rejecting the tweets that @bad_dominicana and countless other black women have been producing for years, is perhaps one of the most ironic forms of black erasure that I’ve seen perpetuated by non-black Latinos.

This isn’t to say I don’t receive pushback. While my conversations on Twitter have been largely positive, my conversations on Facebook — where I have more personal contact with users than I do on Twitter — have been mixed. While many black and non-black people I know who have opened up on Facebook, shared personal and often painful stories either publicly or in personal messages to me, some non-black Latinos have mentioned that these conversations are just too difficult to have. Although as non-black Latinos, we often know firsthand what it’s like to face personal discrimination and institutional racism, we’re also more often comfortable with identifying as the injured party, and not the perpetrator. For non-black Latinos, the anxiety over having these conversations is rooted in the contradiction that we can simultaneously be the oppressed and be the oppressors.

Some of the anti-black bias among non-black Latinos is driven by the misconception that black people do not support the immigrants’ rights movement. But this erases the fact that there are black immigrants from the Americas and elsewhere, and it assumes that there are not already entire black organizations that focus on immigrant justice. But the argument also expects black people to be working on behalf of non-black Latinos as if that work is automatically owed to us. The unchecked entitlement packed into the argument that black people need to support non-black Latinos demonstrates not that non-black Latinos are aspiring toward whiteness — but that we already actively employ some of its trappings.

In the immigrant rights community in particular, non-black Latinos use the term Juan Crow to reference the systematic terror that undocumented immigrants face in the South. This is a powerful articulation of the injustice experienced by undocumented immigrants, but it is often employed without recognizing how the most recent struggle of Latino immigrant communities is distinct from the nearly century-long struggle of black people under Jim Crow. When babies born to undocumented immigrants are hatefully described as “anchor babies,” we cite birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Yet we rarely acknowledge that doing so takes advantage of a piece of legislation created to confer citizenship to formerly enslaved black people following the Civil War.

The citizenship we envision for ourselves, however, is not the limited form of citizenship that black people still experience today. Black citizens — whose very right to vote remains contested — may not be slated for deportation, but they are disproportionately targeted for stop-and-frisk, for jail and prison, for violence, and for death. Whenever non-black Latinos claim or even aspire to citizenship without also advocating for the recognition of the full humanity (and full citizenship) of black people, then we are allowing white supremacy to operate unchallenged. We may, indeed, creatively acquire a fuller citizenship through a piece of legislation that was historically intended for black people, but it is immoral to do so at the cost of preserving a racial hierarchy that maintains that those same black people are a little less than human.

For years, I’ve heard friends try to justify their anti-blackness by stressing that many of us are indigenous to different places in the Americas. Many non-black Latinos do, indeed, descend from the original peoples of these continents, but that does not magically makes it impossible for us to perpetuate anti-blackness. We know racism and discrimination because we endure it — but that doesn’t mean we lack the power to be oppressive. Just as importantly, this argument illustrates the tendency to ignore our learned behavior, and re-center the conversation on our own identity instead of our biases.

There is a deep pain that grows out of our inability to actually have conversations about anti-blackness within our communities. Entire families have been split apart when a non-black Latino has married a black partner. Those in the immediate family take sides, and will sometimes never really talk again; these lines invariably widen to include extended family. On Facebook, I don’t know that I’ve ever read so many personal messages that begin, “I’ve never told anybody this, but …” when discussing the pain caused by anti-blackness within our families. As ashamed as some mixed Latino families are about their black members, the shame of even talking about it somehow seems greater.

We need to remember that, as powerful as it is to identify as people of color, black people face a unique set of oppressions that non-black people also perpetuate. And we need to recognize that, as non-black Latinos, our silence does, at times, protect us. We find comfort in our silence around our anti-blackness, but that silence is nothing more than collusion with white supremacy. We need to talk about anti-blackness in our communities — half as much as we need to listen to and take seriously what black people say about it, in digital spaces online, as well as in everyday life. It is impossible to assert that we stand against white supremacy while we allow it to inform our anti-blackness. It is impossible to be allies to black people if we are unwilling to carry a conversation about our biases, and begin to lay claim to our faults.

All too often, anti-blackness is literally a matter of death and death. If he already weren’t so famous for the killing of a black child, George Zimmerman (whose mother is an immigrant from Peru) may himself be racially profiled in places like Arizona, and perhaps even in Florida. But his investment in white supremacy both informed the way he hunted down Trayvon Martin and the way he was acquitted for doing so. While many non-black Latinos took to the streets in anger after the verdict, some of us also remained silent about our friends and family members who told us that Zimmerman was correct to kill Martin. Yet it’s only in discussing these things openly — through our discomfort, our confusion and our contradictions — that we’ll find concrete ways to end the perpetuation of anti-black racism where it exists in our families, our communities and our movements. Source: https://goo.gl/ZuW2Zs