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examination of published and unpublished cases, Hernández uses reported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.
[1]
Note: I
follow Professor Hernández’s use of the term “Latino” rather than other
alternatives such as Hispanic, Hispano, Latina/o, Latin@, Latine, or Latinex.