Afro-Latinos and LatinX: Are We Included?

I don’t identify as LatinX. Why? Because a movement that is so focused on empowering and giving voice to a group of people are led by individuals who all look the same. Who look nothing like me. Who make no room for voices like mine. A group of people who are discriminatory towards Blacks here and in their parents’ countries.

So how do we expect the children of those with discriminatory tendencies to be any different? The same LatinX kids who seem to be fighting for the cause on Instagram, but can’t fight for the same cause when their parents say something racist at the dinner table. When a young Mexican man told my friend Sandra at a journalism conference in LA: “Oh my god you’re so beautiful” with this incredulous look like he’s never seen a beautiful dark-skinned woman. The individual compliment he thought he was giving was actually a broader insult.

To the friends who will say their light skinned daughters can’t ever bring a Black man home, but will then go on social media and group chats saying “F the racist Police.” I’m not calling you out publicly because I’ve already done so privately. To all the Latinos empathizing with kids and children in cages on the border, but can’t empathize with Black life. To that cousin who pointed to his light skin and rubbed it and told my sister to not “Danar la raza/mess up the race” when mentioning the color…