Non-Black people of color, especially Latinx non-Black people of color, need to understand that everything that has happened to us in the past five centuries has been because of anti-Blackness. The conquering of our homes, the taking of our land, and the destruction of our ancestors is rooted in anti-Blackness. That should be at the forefront of ALL our politics. I need us to stop excusing the anti-Blackness in our communities and in ourselves. We need to start being open and critical about race, anti-indigeneity, and white supremacist ideology. Not every Latinx person is brown.
And to the white Latinx population, you need to be honest about your race and the amount of space you take up.
We need to stop letting our parents say anti-Black shit like “Black people this and Black people that.” We need to stop saying the n-word. Period. I grew up in Miami where this is far too common and the norm–it took me a long time to unlearn this and see the harm I was doing. Our proximity to Blackness does not excuse our use of the n-word. Also, Latinx women need to stop letting people sexualize and glorify us as more desirable than Black women. Stop playing into this bullshit.
Assimilation is an illusion. When we buy into shit like this we are co-signing the destruction of our people.
To hear more from Mia, follow her on Instagram at @miamonchichi.
