There is a general belief in the United States that Latinos can’t be racist.
Both Black and Latino communities have faced decades of discrimination. The Black community — composed of African Americans and others of African descent — confronts race-based discrimination, while Latinos confront ethnic discrimination. The two groups have frequently joined together to fight for civil rights.
Yet, as Fordham University Law Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández points out in her 2022 book, “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality,” there are also conflicts between the two groups that need to be acknowledged.
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Since at least the 1960s, Blacks and Latinos have had coalition-building efforts based on all the things we have in common. “In the 1960s, the Young Lords alliance with the Black Panthers provided an example of Chicago African American and Latino communities coming together to pursue programs of direct action to bring their neighborhoods such services as daycare, free breakfasts, and vocational training,” Hernández writes. “Within New York City, the Young Lords Party also participated in Black Power movements and African American civil rights.” Latino voters played a key role in electing Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, but the professor pointed out to the AmNews that while coalition-building fosters unity among so-called “people of color,” it can also mask a tendency among some coalition members to marginalize their own.
In her book, Hernández shows that colorism and prejudice are everyday occurrences within Latino communities, often paralleling the racism Black Americans face from whites. She cites legal cases where judges and juries have ruled against African Americans and Afro Latinos who brought discrimination cases against Latino employers, landlords, and supervisors.
There was a 2016 case against a Chicago-based nationwide job placement agency where “Latino supervisors trained [their Latino employees] to exclude African American applicants from job placements in favor of Latino applicants. …. because of the stereotype that they were not capable of working as hard as Latinos…”
In California, she writes about Latinos who joined with whites to harass a Black family out of a neighborhood. And the fact that there are Latino street gangs that stalk, beat, and sometimes murder Black people who move into predominantly Latino neighborhoods. “In 2019, seven members of the Los Angeles Hazard Grande (Big Hazard) Latino street gang pled guilty to firebombing the Ramona Gardens public housing complex in East Los Angeles with the specific intent of driving Black residents out of the Boyle Heights neighborhood,” Hernández writes. “The Hazard Grande gang was affiliated with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which ordered the firebombings as part of their mutual commitment to eradicating Black people from the predominantly-Latino Ramona Gardens complex.”
But even though there are frequent cases of Latino racism, the pervasive myth is that Latinos are incapable of racism and hail from discrimination-free countries. Any animosity between African Americans and Latinos gets blamed on the Black community. There is a “presumption that African Americans harbor resentment and bias against Latinos for ‘leapfrogging’ over them in a competition for jobs and resources,” Hernández writes in “Racial Innocence,” yet a recent survey found that while “Latinos state they have the most in common with white non-Hispanics and the least in common with African Americans. In contrast, African Americans respond that they feel they have more in common with Latinos and the least in common with whites and Asian Americans.”
Hernández explained in an interview that “If a Black person is accused of anti-Latino bias, that gets vetted and examined and investigated from our courts as a true aspect of discrimination. My attention in this book is not towards that because what I have found is that a Latino who is accused of anti-Blackness –– that is viewed as an exception to the rule, that is viewed as not being real discrimination. So, my point is not that other kinds of discrimination are not problematic; my point is that the one that I’m examining –– that of Latinos being anti-Black –– is a misunderstood dynamic, and it’s one that in both public discourse and in our legal system is not treated as a true act of discrimination.”
Hernández reports that her book has received various responses within the Latino community. Some white Latinos are upset about the book and feel that they are being indicted. And there’s been a very strong emotional reaction from other Latinos who see their own experiences in the book. They can identify with the stories about discrimination and feel they are finally gaining visibility. Sometimes, at her book events, it becomes almost like a church, Hernández said, where people come to testify.
“I mean, here’s the thing: when we view anti-Blackness as being, ‘Oh this is only about white Anglo English speakers,’ –– because they’ve been, so often, part of the problem –– it means that we take our eyes off the ball in which it’s systemic, right? It’s not just about individuals and sort of like what their grandmother told them, or who they prefer for their children to marry, or what have you. It’s about when you are in positions with some discretion and decision-making, what choices are you making? Are they truly based on merit, or are they based on racial dynamics and stereotypes and the like?
“It means that we need to look at that from a systemic perspective, not just that it’s about one individual. So, my focus on the Latinos and Latinidad is for lifting that up.”