Puerto Rican Beauticians Make Hurftul Comments in Spanish About Black Client

“The assumption that being black and Latino is not possible isn’t only false — it can have harmful consequences on a person’s sense of identity, as revealed by one woman in a recent video that’s going viral.”

Link to original article and video:
Why You Should Never Assume That
A Black Person Can’t Be Latino

 

Not one Latino has ever been able to explain to me why they enjoy music like salsa, bachata, and reggaetón, which has major black Latino contributions, but is so quick to assume that a black person among them cannot be Latino.

 

I have known black Latinos who are a lot more outspoken than the one in this article and video who are quick to roll out their Spanish to set fellow Latinos straight, and almost give them a cardiac arrest from the shock they experience to see black faces speaking Spanish so fluently.

 

One black woman told me the reason she keeps her Latina heritage on the down low around a lot of non-black Spanish speakers is to see if they are going to talk “smack” about her in Spanish so she can put them in their place with embarrassment. 

 

There was an incident on a New York City Subway train where a black Latina was riding quietly with her two children. A group of unsupervised black American teens happened to pass through the subway car doing what teens normally do after school, and another Latina passenger went on a loud Spanish-speaking tirade to a friend about how wild and crazy black people are. The black Latina didn't respond to the passenger, but instructed her kids, in Spanish, to sit closer to her. 

 

The loud talking Latina passenger realized what she had done, and out of pure shame, apologized in Spanish to the black Latina after she had already expressed her true feelings about black people. Exactly what was the black woman supposed think or feel?

 

It's bad enough when black Americans, especially here in New York where there is a large Afro-Latino population, don't recognize that a black person can also be Latino and alienate them, but Latinos themselves should really, really know better. They really should!

 

Link to original article and video:
Why You Should Never Assume That
A Black Person Can’t Be Latino