Anti-Black Bias and the Allure of “Whiteness”

Guest Blogger

For the Balkinization symposium on Tanya K. Hernández, Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality (Beacon Press, 2022).

Rhonda Reaves

“Parece changuito” (He’s like a little monkey). These were the words former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez used to describe the adopted Black son of a White colleague. The words were secretly recorded in an October 2021 meeting between four Latino^[1] city leaders and made public a year later. The resulting political scandal, marked by public protests, resignations, and denunciations, tested the bonds of longstanding multiracial political coalitions. For many Angelenos, the recording exposed the simmering problem of anti-Black bias in the Latino community, the subject of a significant new book by Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández.

Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández’s book, Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality (Racial Innocence), is a timely meditation on the persistence of anti-Blackness and the important role anti-Blackness plays in maintaining White supremacy. Professor Hernández catalogs the voices of the often-ignored victims of Latino anti-Black bias to examine how anti-Blackness operates in the Latino community and expose the law’s ineffectual response.

The book opens with the provocative first salvo: “Latinos can be racist.” Professor Hernández makes this observation both to bring what she describes as “a dirty secret” to light and to show its impact on the struggle for equality for people of African descent. Through careful examination of published and unpublished cases, Hernández uses reported instances of Latino anti-Blackness to offer an incisive commentary on the law’s ineptitude in addressing anti-Blackness despite a formal commitment to equality.

Professor Hernández studies Latino anti-Blackness in public and private places and in every corner of daily life – in schools, in workplaces, in housing, in prisons, and in the streets. She describes encounters with anti-Blackness by people like Quinta, an Afro-Dominicana denied housing by a Latino landlord; Eric Trujillo, an Afro-Latino denied service at a Mexican restaurant; Edward Olumuyiwa, a Nigerian American harassed by his Latino supervisor; Maxine Sprott, an African American harassed by her Latina supervisor; and many others.

While the book focuses on Latino anti-Black bias, Professor Hernández acknowledges that anti-Blackness is not solely a Latino problem. But Latino anti-Black bias deserves particular scrutiny, she says, because Latino anti-Black bias is not often publicly acknowledged because of a general belief in Latino “racial innocence,” that “as a uniquely racially mixed people Latinos are incapable of racist attitudes.” She argues that Latinos deploy this racial innocence defense to deflect charges of anti-Black bias. In Los Angeles, for example, the defense of “racial innocence” was quickly raised by some Latinos in response to the leaked recording. According to Los Angeles Times journalist Gustavo Arellano, some readers challenged the racist connotations attributed to the phrase “changuito,” describing it instead as an innocuous reference to hyperactive behavior. He writes, “Yes, Mexicans use “monkey” as verb and noun to describe rambunctious kids … But “chango” and “changuito” are also used to slur Black people.”  

In this book, Professor Hernández challenges readers to view racial conflicts differently. Rather than viewing racial conflict as a clash solely between Whites and non-Whites, she directs the reader to view racial conflicts through a Black/non-Black lens. The Black/non-Black perspective challenges the traditional notion that race in the United States coalesces around a Black/White binary and that only Whites can engage in racist behavior. Instead, Hernández’s exploration of racial conflict through a Black/non-Black lens illuminates how the pursuit of Whiteness affects the struggles of identifiable peoples within traditional racial groups and across traditional racial boundaries. This change in perspective helps to unearth otherwise unremarked instances of anti-Black bias.

This book beautifully illustrates that to understand anti-Blackness, one must understand both the allure of Whiteness and the essential role anti-Black bias plays in maintaining White supremacy. Professor Hernández attributes the Latino affinity for “White” over “Black” to cultural and social pressure to pursue “Whiteness.” In this Black/non-Black racial hierarchy, the pursuit of “Whiteness,” even for those who otherwise claim non-White or multiracial identities, means the opportunity to ascend to concrete socioeconomic benefits. In contrast, “Blackness” means to be trapped at the bottom of the social stratum, a member of a perpetual Black underclass.

Further, Professor Hernández shows how existing data collection methods hamper efforts to bring anti-Black bias to light. Proof of bias often relies upon statistical data showing the underrepresentation of a targeted group compared to the group’s expected numbers. However, this data is not collected in ways that consistently reveal the experiences of Afro-Latinos. Instead, the Afro-Latino experience is subsumed within other statistical categories. In her research for this book, Hernández scoured electronic case databases spanning more than fifty years to unearth instances of Latino anti-Black bias; a task made more difficult by the databases’ failure to identify the race or ethnicity of the parties in a way that makes such categories easily searchable. Yet, through careful perusal of available databases and interviews, she documents a demonstrable pattern of Latino anti-Black bias.

This book also contributes to our understanding of the limits of antidiscrimination law. The stories Professor Hernández shares illustrate the law’s inelasticity. While antidiscrimination law prohibits discrimination “because of” race or on the “basis of” race, this book demonstrates the challenge of applying the two-dimensional word “race” to address multi-dimensional social problems of disparate groups. The law treats racism as existing on a horizontal axis (intergroup bias). Yet, it ineffectively addresses racism experienced on a vertical axis (intragroup bias), rendering invisible much of the intragroup discrimination Hernández seeks to illuminate. As Hernández describes, “The jurisprudence of US antidiscrimination law has long understood Black to be solely a reference to African Americans and has viewed non-Latino Whites as the primary agents of discrimination. Within that context, Afro-Latinos asserting discrimination by other Latinos presents a conundrum that does not fit the traditional narrative of US discrimination.” As Hernández notes, anti-Blackness operates among and within social groups, often at the intersection of race, color, and ethnicity. Still, the law often treats such harms as mutually exclusive.

Professor Hernández herself acknowledges the difficult terrain she seeks to navigate. She recognizes the inevitable backlash her work will likely inspire as she tries to convince a skeptical audience that Latinos, themselves a marginalized group, can exhibit anti-Black bias. Yet, she fearlessly renders visible that which many would prefer to remain invisible. As James Baldwin says, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

This book shows that White supremacy is not a system maintained solely by Whites but also by non-Whites seeking access to the privileges of “Whiteness.” It has implications for discussions about the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement that can gloss over or render invisible anti-Black bias by treating marginalized groups as interchangeable. The book encourages us to continue to wrestle with the import of interpreting statutory language in ways that encourage a one size fits all approach to addressing social problems facing disparate social groups.

Lastly, following Maya Angelou’s insight that “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,” Professor Hernández uses her own story and the story of others to show the pain of anti-Black bias. In doing so, she reminds us that injustice is not an abstract concept; it is the lived experience of people.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, after the secret recording of the Latino leaders was made public, two participants, council members Kevin De León and Gil Cedillo, refused to resign. In the recording, Councilman De León reportedly described one of his White colleagues as the council’s “fourth Black member” and as someone who “won’t f-cking ever say [a] peep about Latinos.” In defending his decision to remain on the council, De Leon says his presence on the council is necessary to represent the voices of the people in his district, a district that is reportedly at least 68 percent Latino and less than 6 percent Black. While not easily identifiable from the official statistics, presumably, some of De León’s constituents are Afro-Latinos. The lesson from Racial Innocence is that their voices deserve to be heard, too.

Rhonda Reaves is a Professor of Law at Florida A&M University College of Law. You can reach her by e-mail at rhonda.reaves@famu.edu.