LA ESQUINA: Approaching Current Times with Esperanza, Celebración, y La Lucha
La Esquina is our monthly column focusing on all things Latinx. Written by LNL contributors, La Esquina will focus on the various things that matter to us, from cultural moments to current events, we’re here, let’s talk about. Meet us en la esquina! This month Jenny Motaval invites our PRIDE curators to join the conversation.
In our first newsletter, we spoke about getting through these trying times in Comunidad. As a community that has been hit hard by COVID-19, it was important to highlight the many ways Black and Brown people are disproportionately affected. Today, it’s also important to talk about another pandemic: Racism.
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen communities across all 50 states stand up for Black lives and fight against police brutality. As a community, we have pulled up to city halls, riots, and marches. We have called out networks for their biases. We have informed millions of non-Black Latinx of their anti-blackness and micro-aggressions, and how many continue to perpetuate the oppression of Black people throughout the diaspora. We’re doing this all en Comunidad, in knowing that the day a Black life matters everywhere, will be the day all of our lives will matter.
As Latinx journalists inform the masses on what defunding the police means and unpack deep conversations on racism in Latin America, it is clear that the learning and growth is continuous. These past weeks also proved the deep intersectionality between Pride Month and Black Lives Matter. Transgender people are 3.7 times more likely to experience police violence compared to cisgender survivors and victims, they are also 7 times more likely to experience physical violence. And as the world saw after the June 14th protest, when over 15 thousand people dressed in white assembled outside the Brooklyn Museum in support of Black Trans Lives, it is important to remember that the fight for Black lives and LGBTQ+ issues is one that has historically intertwined and is not just a U.S issue.
Writers Aldo Araujo and Vice’s Alyza Enriquez join me this month, in approaching our current times with esperanza, celebración, and la lucha.
Globalization: This is not a U.S issue. It’s a GLOBAL issue
On May 26, 2020, Costa Rica became the first country in Central America to legalize same-sex marriage. It got me thinking. There are 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean combined, and the freedom to marry the person you love is legal in only 8 of them. That’s just under a quarter.
In the fight for civil liberties against anti-Blackness and racism taking place in this country and the world beyond, I couldn’t help but think of some of our American privileges. The US Supreme Court ruling of marriage equality in 2015 was a huge win we now take for granted.
It’s true, we face our own battles: Black trans women are being killed at alarming rates and transgender health protections are being threatened by Trump (the Supreme court most likely upended it), which are all heavy truths to reckon with during Black Lives Matter, the month of Pride and four-year anniversary of the Pulse club shooting. Marriage equality isn’t the universal solve for Black and queer liberation, but our freedom to do so is everyone’s right and makes up a small piece of the revolution.
How then can US-based LGBTQIA+ folks and our allies intervene, support and champion the liberation movements in our home countries in Latin America? How can we keep up this energy and help Black queer lives around the world? Let’s talk about it. No one is free until we’re all free.
- In solidarity and love, Aldo
Racism and Transphobia in Our Communities
I was raised in Miami and Broward, in a Cuban household, with the legacy of Castro’s regime looming over me. As a child, I listened to my parents and our extended family denounce the Cuban government, pledge allyship to the Republican party, and slowly fall into the trap that is assimilationism in America. A lot of immigrant families assimilate–in an attempt to literally survive–and yet unchecked assimilation allows us to fall prey to the very systems that keep our most vulnerable community members from thriving. Under the guise of assimilation, white supremacy is prevalent in our communities, from each new generation being stripped of their home country’s lengua to blatant racism and transphobia. The time has come for us, as a community, to come together and no longer accept when abuela says you need to mejorar la raza or when tío refers to someone he didn’t like as a maricon. We have to be mindful of the words we use and learn our histories––acknowledging that many of our cultures include more than one gender and are literally made up of African traditions. As we’ve seen over the last four months, assimilation is no longer necessary to survive, and collective action, both as comrades and teachers to our parents and elders, is the only way to push forward. We can no longer compete for the crumbs that white supremacy offered our abuelos and instead, we must rebuild the table and invite everyone to it.
- Alyza Enriquez
An Attack on Uno is An Attack on Todos
As key players, tastemakers, writers, and leaders fulfilling important positions of power we must all contribute to this life-long commitment of unpacking our biases, decolonizing our mindsets, and creating space for the unheard. I challenge you, the reader, to think of the ways you approach conversations at the dinner table, are you calling out the simple racist remarks that have long been ingrained in our verbiage? I challenge you, the non-Black and non-queer Latinx in newsrooms, writing rooms, production spaces, and marketing meetings to use your voice to dismantle anti-blackness and homophobia. Understand that when you are in these spaces, you must educate and train yourself to speak on behalf of those erased from a conversation, so that it can lead to more Black and Queer inclusion.
Consider the LGBTQ+ and Black community in everything that you do, but also take a step back and make space for those doing the work on the frontlines—figure out ways to include activists and socio-critics. White, non-Queer Latinx silence is violence, and when the Black and Queer experience is ignored you are perpetuating oppression. We have seen performative allyship, but the days of inactive protesting are over. Commit to learning, support Black writers, and educate yourself on the hidden history that has terrorized communities for centuries.
- Jennifer Motaval
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“Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.
I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group, and I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.”
Audre Lorde, There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions (1983)
Written by Jenny Motaval, Aldo Araujo, and Alyza Enriquez.