As Latinos, We Should Know Better

As Latinos, we should know better, should want better, should be better on racism, and bigotry … and know better, want better and be better about being pitted against other communities in some sick competition that will simply make the majority more powerful at a time that minorities, when together, are the majority (including within the Latinx community where up to 25 % identify as Black and my children are Asian Latino).

Except, here we are again.

This past week, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez was caught on tape calling the Black child of LA City Councilman Mike Bonin “changuito (monkey)," and said about LA Dist. Atty. George Gascon, “F— that guy. He’s with the Blacks,” about the redistricting of City Council seat strategies that seemed to involve Latino vs Black competing for power.

The real power is in working together, along with Asian, Native, and other races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders and non-binary, colorism, faiths, and people of different abilities. We should be in competition with institutional racism and bias, lack of opportunities and resources, and negative narratives – NOT WITH EACH OTHER.

And we need to know that our advocacy starts at our kitchen tables by calling out our own families for using disparaging labels and language cloaked in a proclaimed culturally-accepted patina, even a perverse attempt at a term of endearment.

Think for a moment about what you’ve heard from family members over the years. Well, it will take more than an eyeroll and “ay, papi” or “ay, abuela” to address this insidious issue. Because what we put up with fuels what ends up in schools, workplaces, in public places and even in private government meetings like the abhorrent remarks by Nury Martinez, which my org HHF condemns up and down. (According to the Pew Research Institute, 53% of Latinos ages 18-29 say they hear racist or racially insensitive comments or jokes from their Latino friends and family.)

Latino racism and other forms of bigotry are pervasive, including sports …

Washington Commanders Defensive Coordinator Jack Del Rio publicly suggested that the protests after the murder of George Floyd – and more than 500 years of racial violence and oppression – were worse than the vicious assault on the US Capitol and our Democracy as a country.

“I can look at images on the TV (about the protests against racial violence), people’s livelihoods are being destroyed, businesses are being burned down, no problem. And then we have a dust up at the Capitol, nothing burned down, and we’re going to make that a major deal.”

A dust up? Perhaps the Latino football coach needed to watch film of the violent insurrection against the transfer of power after a legitimate election, the Vice President who was being sought for a public hanging, and the police instead of all the game film he was watching of the next Commanders opponents.

Unfortunately, this ugly perspective isn’t unique to the LA Council President or the football coach. In between, racism in the Latino community, and all communities, has virulently spread across our community for generations and into every part of our personal and professional lives.

I have stopped too-many-to-count conversations heading towards or landing on racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and the disparaging of people with disabilities.

I won’t be a part of conversations under the auspices of moving the Latino community forward in some sort of sick competition with other communities. I make it clear that it’s not a conversation I will be a part of and strongly suggested to engage other communities to make a more powerful effort with a more powerful community.

I’d rather carpool with other communities than stay in my lane – we will get there faster.

Black and Brown and other races/ethnicities competing for resources, public attention and positioning is happening across the public and private sectors, philanthropy, nonprofits, education, Hollywood, finance, economic development, etc.

It’s worse than ever because more is at stake.

Keep in mind that we won’t always have the benefit of a recording available to call out the hateful, divisive rhetoric and strategies of a Nury Martinez and many others who are way too comfortable expressing … silence is complicit.

It’s up to all of us to hold them accountable, every single time.

(Bravo to the Latino protesters who pushed for a resignation.)