With all of the protests happening both on the streets and online and the BLM movement, I want to take a moment to address racism in other communities. Specifically the Latinx community.

I’m a Brazilian American who grew up in a fairly white part of Massachusetts with a pretty heavy population of Latin Americans (from all over central and SA). I had to learn from a young age to fit in with American culture as a lot of young first gen kids feel we have to do.

I tried to be connected with both sides of my identity, American and Brazilian. Yet, there was a whole chunk of the Latinx world I was not aware of. I supported BLM in the US but was told that in Latin America most people didn’t identify as white so racism wasn’t a problem there.

Thanks to the internet, it didn’t take me long to see past the utter lie that was. The systemic racism in the Latinx world is planted so deep we’re drowning in it and most of us don’t even realize it. It was only when I got to high school that I noticed how bad it truly is.

We Latinx are united in the fact that we will defend our cultures and right to be in this country with the might of the gods (as we should), but an embarrassing amount of us won’t show the same level of enthusiasm for black folks. Why is that?

In high school, as I connected more with my Latin side, I noticed an alarming amount of supremacy towards black and other races/ethnicities from the same group that experienced oppression in the same way.

I’m gonna be honest and say that I was silent because I was afraid of being turned away from a group I desperately wanted to be apart of. And I’m ashamed that I didn’t speak out when I had to the chance. But I do now and I won’t be silent anymore.

I love my culture and my community and that won’t change so I owe to it to express that just because you’re part of a group that faces discrimination DOES NOT mean that you’re better or suffer more than others. We need to unite to help bring change for all of us.

I fight for one so I’ll fight for all. I hope this thread helped open some eyes.