So like pretty much all Black people, I knew what anti-blackness was from a young age. I can’t remember a “first” realization, because it was kinda always there.

And it was not just from white people.

It was from Latinos too.

My mom has plenty of stories of going to—

—college in Puerto Rico and being called all kinds of names for being one of the blackest students. I have plenty of my own stories of wanting to claim my Puerto Rican heritage alongside my African American heritage, and being dismissed, excluded, or confronted by Latinos.

Note that I’m using the term “Latinos” instead of “Latine” or “Latinx” on purpose here. Bc the Latinos who refuse to use the more inclusive terms for the WHOLE community (call yourself whatever you want) also seem to be the ones who are the worst at including Black Latinx.

But back to the point. With a lifetime of experiencing anti-blackness from multiple communities, you can be sure that someone like me— and really, all Black people, no matter our heritage— are attuned to anti-blackness in its many forms, even when it’s from other POCs.

We’re not new to this. We could all have masters degrees in recognizing both subtle and overt anti-blackness.

So if you say you “misspoke” or insist that we misunderstood what you said, you’re gaslighting us.

When someone like EL publicly slips up in this way, exposing her own anti-blackness, but then refusing to admit to it, we speak up and point it out, so that she can learn and do better.

The same way we’ve been doing it when white folks slip up.

It’s called implicit bias.

Yes, even this is implicit bias.

She is so used to either being compared to Black women as a Latina, or doing the comparing herself, that it didn’t even occur to her as she framed up her thoughts that expressing pride in the activism of Latinas as a counterpoint to Black women-

—is deeply problematic. Why minimize? And why even make that type of comparison between communities that overlap so heavily? But then, that’s another issue. Lots of Latinos of a certain age were raised to erase Blackness, while also weirdly highlighting it in super awkward ways.

Anyway. I don’t know how to end this thread. I guess what I want is for more Latinos/x/es to examine, confront, and manage their bias and anti-blackness, rather than hiding behind the excuse “we’re people of color too!”

That’s it. The end. Good night!