I saw one statement from: “Juan Cartagena, President and General Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF on the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police.” It was indicating solidarity w/ “Black Lives“ & like clockwork erasing that some of those Black Lives are Latinos. Typical.

This is why I can’t get with this “Black & Brown Lives” performance piece. What of those Black Latinos? Are we an agenda item in the U.S. Latino narrative. Short answer: no tf we are not. The Latino issue they keep framing is immigration. & Black Latinos still erased there too.

U.S. Latinos keep signaling that their “Black Lives Matter” solidarity is with African-Americans. Always othering the Blackness they continue to erase from the Latino conversation. It’s easier that way. Then they don’t have to confront their very own antiblackness and racism.

I don’t know what it is to be a “brown” Latino. I know wtf it is to be a BLACK “Latino” and the white supremacist crimes committed by racist white AND those same “brown” Latinos in the U.S. AND Latin America. Who are y’all speaking for exactly?

The Latino antiblackness jumps out daily.

Consider the fact that many of those “brown” Latinos, these Latino orgs solely focus on...actually...aren’t Brown. And treatment differs between a Brown & a Black. Y’all know this but won’t say it. Mostly bc y’all the racist ones you complain about in the U.S. except in Spanish.

And not even always in Spanish...cuz a lot of US. Latinos don’t speak Spanish...but their AntiBlackness is completely intact and fluent.

Anti-blackness is their first language.

My Black Latina compañeras were doing supply delivery to “brown” Latinos amid this pandemic and were met with hostility from the families benefiting from their service. Excuse? Cuz you see, AntiBlackness is not bound to border/language/culture. It in fact shapes global culture.

When my mom panics when one of her three Panamanian children doesn’t check-in to the family chat after 2 days...she’s not panicking as a “brown” Latina. She is panicking as a BLACK MOTHER. Periodt. Point blank.

Because she knows her Black daughter could be subject to police harassment in her native Panama AT THE SAME TIME her Black son is subject to police harassment and murder in the U.S. where she now resides. Anti-Black oppression does not change when we change borders.

When my brother was the only one arrested in a parking lot full of dumb high schoolers being dumb high schoolers, they didn’t arrest him bc he is a “brown” Latino, they arrested him bc he is Black. There were other Latinos in the group. They were NOT arrested. They are “brown.”

And what of it when it is “brown” Latinos doling out that violence to other Latinos...that are Black?

Where is the solidarity there? Is it perhaps that....ones’ race is the deciding factor in many of these violence campaigns...and not ethnicity or nationality?

Y’all be like “well, I am Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian.” And I’m like ma’am, I asked your race.

Saying you are dique: “Black and Puerto Rican” when I ask your race doesn’t make sense. Is the Puerto-Rican part of that answer Black as well? So then say Black. Da fuq.