Page 3 - Metro Record May 2021

THE METRO RECORD - MAY 2021 3
There is Always More to a Story! NEWS

‘Complicating Latinidad: Learning to be Black

in an Anti-Black World

by Angel L. Velez Blackness in Puerto Rican culture is for Black Puerto Ricans. The landscape of
celebrated. We celebrate our Black music Puerto Rico’s Hispanic-serving
We Were Never Black such as reggaeton, plena, bomba, and community colleges is quite interesting,
salsa. We love our Black-inspired foods in fact. Recently, I co-authored a research
such as mofongo and cuchifritos. and policy brief that highlights how
However, this love for Blackness is Puerto Rico does not report statistics for
superficial and fades away quickly. the archipelago’s distinct racial groups.
The color-evasiveness and racially neutral
Blackness was also frowned upon. I ideologies lead to anti-Blackness and
remember being called cara de mono or uphold white supremacist values in
monkey face a couple of times. People, Puerto Rico.
including my family, would say I had pelo Angel Velez, second from right, as a
malo because my hair was thick and While Blackness is scapegoated, freshmanDuring my freshman year (that's me,
coarse. Regarding Blackness and racism whiteness is continuously celebrated and second from right in photo),
in Puerto Rico, scholar Jorge Duany centered.
states: Ms. Bermudez recruited me to a citywide
And while Blackness is scapegoated, Spanish poetry competition. It was the
“Stereotypes persistently stigmatize the whiteness is continuously celebrated and first time Clemente had ever competed,
Black population of Puerto Rico and centered. From statues of Christopher and we had a great team. I remember Ms.
practically exclude it from the nationalist Columbus to every governor, being white- Bermudez asking me if I knew Luis Pales
canon. In elite as well as in popular forms skinned, white identified, and Matos, a well-known poet in Puerto Rico.
of culture, Afro-Puerto Ricans continued phenotypical Puerto Ricans dominate He wrote Black poetry, and one of his
Growing up in Puerto Rico, I knew the to be represented as marginal and social media and politics. In fact, the most famous poems was titled “Majestad
color of my skin. Everyone reminded me subaltern outsiders, as less Puerto Rican statue of Columbus in Puerto Rico is taller Negra” (Black Majesty). This style of
of it. I was often called “trigueño,” a color than white people. A catalogue of racial than the Statue of Liberty. Many white- writing was a perfect fit for me. People
somewhere in between Black and white. A slurs against dark-skinned people run skinned Puerto Ricans are often from cried over the poem I entered in the
simple dictionary search will tell you that through folk humor, proverbs, aesthetic higher-income classes and live in gated competition, and I won first place in the
I have the color of yellowish dark wheat. concepts, school texts, museum displays, communities. Where I am from, people go underclass category.
Even though my father was a Black Puerto media representations, literary texts, and gaga for blue-eye babies. It is ingrained in
Rican, my mother’s father was a Black political speeches.” every aspect of Puerto Rican life. If Black Playing basketball and winning a Spanish
man, and though my skin color was Puerto Ricans try to call attention to these poetry competition were amazing
similar to theirs, we were never Black. In many ways, affirming Blackness was inconsistencies, people often call us accomplishments, but my Blackness
While I have always been a Black Puerto only allowed in prescriptive ways, while acompleja’os or self-conscious. We are began to weigh negatively on me. In the
Rican, also known as an Afro-Latino, I often being co-opted by light-skinned often blamed for bringing attention to this U.S. racial order, racism is more blatant
had to learn how to be Black. Puerto Ricans. Reggaeton is an excellent racial double standard. It is treated as a and in your face. It is not the subtle,
example of a Black music genre that is figment of our imagination, not casual racism that takes place in Puerto
The colonization of Puerto Rico and Latin performed by mostly white Puerto Ricans something systemic or structural. In that Rico. In Chicago I would be stopped and
America by the Spanish has left behind such as Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny. An regard, avoiding race and evading frisked frequently with no probable cause.
vestiges of white supremacy and racism. article by the Latinx magazine Remezcla colorism is a tool of white supremacy that Walking to my home often triggered the
The Spanish invented the ideas of “razas” even called upon all of us to not forget benefits white Puerto Ricans. Since police to violate my civil rights, most of
(race) to classify groups as superior or reggaeton’s Black roots. Artists such as colonization and enslavement, white skin the time for no apparent reason. My skin
inferior. Almost a century before enslaved Tego Calderon, Don Omar, and El and bodies have been deemed more color was enough to command that
Black Africans were stolen from their General are ignored figures despite their valuable and desired. There is an response. I became annoyed by the
homelands and brought to U.S. colonies contributions toward spreading the apparent racial hierarchy whereby Blacks unfairness of policing in the Humboldt
by the British, the Spanish had already genre. In short, this presumed racial are placed at the bottom. I feel that is part Park neighborhood of Chicago.
enslaved millions of Black Africans in harmony is marred in anti-Blackness of the reason we were never Black.
Latin America. The enslavement of Black while turning to colorblindness to help Growing up in Puerto Rico, I do not
Africans happened shortly after the mask it. Learning to be Black remember such a blatantly hostile
Spanish conquered Indigenous lands and environment. At 16 years old, I had only a
exterminated millions of individuals by In Latin America this nebulous concept of In May 2001, when I arrived in Chicago few encounters with Puerto Rican police,
spreading diseases and enslaving these racial harmony contributes to the erasure from Puerto Rico, I was supposed to often stemming from police raids at the
people. This history of conquest, of Blackness. Not until 2016 did Mexico attend Orr Academy High School, located housing project my family lived in. In
colonization, and enslavement frames recognized its Black population, which in a predominately African American Chicago, Black people were considered
Black and Indigenous history in Latin was nearly 1.5 million people. In community. Upon arriving at the school suspects at all times. And without
America, and its effects impact us today. Colombia the government decreased the for enrollment, my mother realized the realizing my Blackness, I became a
percentage of the Black population from high school did not have an English as a perennial suspect, too—and still am. Just
10 to six is due to the systemic under- Second Language program. A few weeks last year I was stopped four times by the
registration of the Black community. later, I ended up enrolling at Roberto police. The anti-Blackness in U.S. society
Dominicans treat Haitians like a pest. In Clemente Community Academy. During was systemic, just like in Puerto Rico. In
Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans dislike my freshman year, I tried out for the both places state-sanctioned racial
Dominicans. While colorblindness places basketball team and was selected to play profiling, excessive force, and violence
the onus on individual bigotry and claims as a small forward. Back in Puerto Rico, I were taking place but occurred in slightly
not to “see” race, the systemic racism in had played organized basketball since I different ways. Notwithstanding, these
Latin American countries, such as Puerto was 6 or 7 years old. The basketball team approaches, while different, have similar
Rico, are the main culprits of Black was 70 percent Black and 30 percent outcomes—Black death.
structural oppression. Puerto Rican. It’s fair to say that my first
interactions with Black people were on Learning to be Black was not only a
Most Puerto Ricans believe that racism the basketball court. My English language constant struggle against white
does not take place in Puerto Rican skills were nonexistent, but I managed to supremacy and racism but also a battle
society and blame the U.S. racial tensions begin learning English with my new within the Latinx community. Due to the
Angel Velez, at right, and his older for the racism experienced on the friends, most of whom were Black. color evasiveness and systemic racism in
brotherFrom early on (that's me, at right archipelago. Regardless, anti-Blackness the U.S., Latinxs often exclude Blackness
in photo, with my older brother), I knew I in Puerto Rico is state-sanctioned Interestingly, coming from Puerto Rico, I (Oakley, 2001). When I walk to a Latinx
was ethnically Puerto Rican. It was also violence. For example, in regard to still did not see myself as Black. I had restaurant, I am sometimes looked upon
my nationality. Those things are taught to policing in Puerto Rico’s urban areas, lived 16 years with the idea that I was just with suspicion. Spanish-speaking
us very early in Puerto Rican schools. We scholar Marisol LeBrón states that “part Puerto Rican. Soon enough, I begin to employees would struggle to speak
learn about our culture, notably the racial of mano dura contra el crimen’s strategy hear my Black friends say to me things English to me, thinking I am African
harmony that supposedly exists in our of controlling drug trafficking and drug- like, “You look like one of us” or “Bro, you American and not realizing I am as fluent
archipelago. related violence on the island included the are Black.” I did not fully understand in Spanish as they are. When advocating
tacit acceptance of continued and indeed what they meant. Obviously, they knew I for Black lives, many Latinxs, including
From an early age, I was conditioned to elevated levels of harm and death directed did not speak English well and that I was some leaders, would dismiss my
believe that our culture is a mixture of at low-income and racialized individuals, from Puerto Rico. But they also knew experiences as an Afro-Latino. In
three cultures: Spanish, Taino, and particularly the poor, young Black and something I did not know, which I later retrospect, I learned to be Black through
African. Yet this racial trilogy is very brown men who labored in the informal learned: Everyone is given a race in the my lived experiences in a racist society
limiting since it promotes whiteness as economy” (Lebron, 2017). U.S. An English teacher, Ms. Bermudez, and the interactions I have with its
the preferred “race” and closes the door also knew this about U.S. society. She members.
on other groups such as Dominicans, Anti-Blackness not only happens during probably knew more about my Blackness
Asians, and Arabs to become part of our policing but also occurs in the realms of than I did.
nation’s collective consciousness. housing, health, and education outcomes