Racial Innocence: Latino Bias, Reality Construction and the Epistemology of Ignorance

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). 

 George A. Martinez.[1] 

            Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández’s book Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality[2], is a very important contribution to the literature on race and the law. Professor Hernández observes that many do not believe that Latinos can be racist or biased against blacks.[3] In the face of such skepticism, Professor Hernández seeks to demonstrate the existence of Latino racism against Afro-Latinos and African-Americans.[4] Toward this end, Professor Hernández sets out the stories and experiences of Afro-Latinos and African-Americans who have suffered from Latino Anti-black racism.[5] In this essay, I argue that (1) Professor Hernández’s work can be placed in a tradition of scholars and civil rights activists who have sought to establish the existence of certain forms of racism and have dismantled claims that such racism does not exist through a methodology that can be characterized as “reality construction” and (2) Professor Hernández’s work provides evidence of what philosophers have called an epistemology of ignorance at work in law which allows Latinos to subordinate African-Americans and Afro-Latinos.

In particular, Professor Hernández uses “legal case stories” to show the existence of Latino anti-black racial discrimination.[6] She thinks law is a powerful tool to demonstrate the existence of such racism because law has developed special techniques and methodologies to expose the existence of racism.[7] She provides legal case stories that are powerful and compelling. For example, she describes Latino anti-black racism in the contexts of public accommodations such as national restaurant chains,[8] retail clothing stores,[9] and convenience stores.[10] Similarly, she sets out numerous convincing legal stories of such anti-black bias in the educational domain,[11] in the employment context,[12] in the area of housing,[13] and in Latino violence against blacks.[14] In summary, Professor Hernández persuasively argues that Latinos can be racist against Afro-Latinos and African Americans.

            At the outset, Professor Hernández’s project is part of a tradition of scholars and activists who have sought to establish the existence of racism in the face of skepticism that particular sorts of racism exist. For example, W.E.B. DuBois and Alonso S. Perales undertook similar projects in their eras. In 1899, DuBois published The Philadelphia Negro.[15] In this book, DuBois observed that African-Americans of the time saw racism as the primary factor operating to subordinate African-Americans in various facets of life. Indeed, the African-Americans saw racism as preventing African-Americans from being recognized as a man.[16]

            Despite this, DuBois observed that most whites in Philadelphia failed to see racism as a cause of problems for African-Americans.[17]  And, indeed, in DuBois’s view most whites in Philadelphia would say that racism against blacks did not exist.[18] In an effort to counter these claims, DuBois, in the Philadelphia Negro set out to prove the existence of racism against African-Americans. He did this by describing “actual cases” to demonstrate the existence of racism against blacks. Thus, he described racial discrimination against blacks in various contexts, including employment and housing.[19]

            Similarly, civil rights activist Alonso S. Perales, in his 1948 work, Are We Good Neighbors?,[20] also dealt with claims that racism was not operating against Mexican-Americans in his era.[21] In his book, Perales set out to provide evidence of various forms of racial discrimination against Mexican-Americans, including in employment and public accommodations.[22] He also produced evidence of segregation in public schools and housing.[23] Significantly, he sought to prove this discrimination in large part through the use of 70 pages of sworn affidavits executed by Mexican-Americans testifying to many incidents of racism against Mexican-Americans.[24] Perales intended to use this evidence to persuade lawmakers to enact legislation to outlaw discrimination against Mexican-Americans.[25]

Professor Hernández’s project like those of DuBois and Perales, is an excellent example of what critical theorists recognize as “reality construction.” “Reality [is] a social construction.”[26] In order to empower themselves, racial minorities must dismantle the “officially … accepted reality.[27] In its place, minority groups must substitute “a more accurate account of reality” by describing their experiences of being oppressed which “invalidates the culture of white… supremacy” which is “the socially constructed reality (of the oppressor).”[28] In light of this process, we can understand Professor Hernández’s project as deconstructing the officially accepted view that Latinos cannot be racist against Afro-Latinos and African-Americans. By describing the Afro-Latino and African-Americans stories of oppression by Latinos, Professor Hernández has substituted a more accurate picture of reality in which Latinos are unmasked and revealed as practicing racial discrimination against Afro-Latinos and African-Americans.

            The legal cases that Professor Hernández identifies, also reveal the existence of an epistemology of ignorance which operates in law to allow Latinos to subordinate blacks. In this regard, philosophers and other theorists have shown how an epistemology of ignorance or the production of ignorance can be employed to subordinate racial minorities.[29] For example, Charles Mills contends that there is a “Racial Contract” that regulates racial relations in society.[30]  According to Mills, this agreement has an epistemological component that requires the dominant group to “engage in a significant degree of misunderstanding, misinterpretation and misrepresentation” regarding racial issues.[31] The production of such ignorance allows a particular group or race to occupy a socially superior position with respect to other races or groups.[32]

In this regard, Professor Hernández’s stories provide evidence of the production of ignorance which helps Latinos maintain a socially dominant position over Afro-Latinos and African-Americans. For instance, one judge misinterpreted the world when he presumed that Latino coworkers and supervisors could not be racist.[33] Similarly, in another case the Latino defendant misrepresented or misunderstood the nature of things when he asserted as a defense that he could not be biased against African-Americans since he was a Latino who had experienced racism directed against him because of his Latino background.[34] Indeed, the Latino innocence defense seems to be a common misrepresentation of reality as the stories also show a landlord arguing that she could not be biased because she was Latina and a man who defended against charges of engaging in racial violence against an African-American by asserting that he could not be racist because he was Puerto Rican.[35]

            Professor Hernández’s book, Racial Innocence, is a pioneering effort which persuasively argues that Latinos can be biased against Afro-Latinos and African-Americans. As such, the book constitutes a very important contribution to the literature on race and the law. The book constitutes an excellent example of reality construction and shows the existence of an epistemology of ignorance which operates to allow Latinos to subordinate Afro-Latinos and African-Americans.