[Moorbey]

BLACK THOUGHTS: A Political Ideological Perspective for Afro Latinos
Part II: Ways(s) of the Black Fist

By: Kevin Alberto Sabio


A mi guerrerita revoluccionista….you’ll never be alone in the struggle, not if I have anything to say about it….

In a person’s life, there are many instances that shape our being, and take us on a particular course in our lives. For some, it might be something that they’ve always had ingrained in them from birth, while for others it might be some sort of chance encounter with a particular person or event/experience to motivate them to travel down this path towards enlightenment and activism that they were seemingly destined to take. I never envisioned myself to be a voice of/for the people; merely another souljah fighting for the cause…a whole hearted believer just trying to do my part. Blacktino.net has allowed me this opportunity to be a voice for the voiceless, with me not initially realizing how far reaching my words can be and have been. Now knowing better, I plan to take this responsibility a lot more seriously.

About a decade ago, during the height of the so-called ‘Latin Explosion’, a comment was made about Latinos having surpassed, or about to surpass, African Americans as the new ‘majority’ minority here in the United States. A big stink was made about it in certain segments of the Black press, making it seem as if this was such a big travesty and calamity. The brothers and sisters who traveled within my social political circle gave a uniformed shrug and stated, “Well…so what? What has that status ever gotten us?” I had previously talked about this experience in my previous article series entitled “Black vs. Brown”, in which I tried to put the friction between the two communities in its proper historical and political perspective. Being a Latino of African descent (and VERY proud of it), it was felt that I would be able to provide a unique perspective to this situation. I caught the ignorance and animosity of it from both sides. I heard a lot of ignorance and racial animosity fly out the mouths of members of the Black community. At the same time, as a Latino of African descent, I was never fully accepted by Latinos, specifically if they were racist against Black people. It was a constant battle that I had to wage; battling the ignorance and stupidity of members from both communities. In “Black vs. Brown”, I talked about the many causes of these issues between our people, with many of them being deeply rooted in our collective histories. This time around…I want to be more solution oriented.

As far as Latinos being the new ‘majority’ minority in the country, where does that place someone like me? I’m not fully accepted by the ‘greater’ Latino community, nor are Afro Latinos in general. Our existence is denied to a certain extent. To be accepted into the ‘greater’ Latino community, we would have to assimilate, and deny much of our African heritage just to fit in. Hmm…why does this sound so familiar? I’ve suffered from prejudice and racism from ‘my own’, with examples too numerous to list here. Yet, this isn’t about bashing anyone; it’s about accepting and learning about who you are.

One third of Latino culture is derived from Africa. Slaves were transported from the continent to the ‘New World’ to provide labor for European colonists/imperialists for their own personal enrichment, and that of their mother country. The Africans were brought in when the numbers of the indigenous people who originally inhabited these lands were either being wiped out by war with, or diseases brought by the colonizers/imperialists. As an extension of the Slave Trade, it soon moved northward to what is now known as North America, with a part of the continent becoming what we now know today as the United States. Slavery was brutal in both regions, as it was throughout this entire hemisphere. Our ancestors suffered greatly at the hands of their oppressors and captors. But, unlike what we’re taught in the ‘mainstream’ educational system, our ancestors didn’t take their enslavement lying down. Many did fight back. Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, there were those that fought and escaped to freedom, and formed their own free and independent societies. These ancestors were most commonly known as the Maroons. You also have those in North America that fought for their freedom. Everyone has heard about the warrior queen Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, but how many of us have ever heard of the Black Seminoles out of what is now Florida? They fought three wars against the United States government, beating them back TWICE. There were also the many slave rebellions, like the Stono Rebellion in North Carolina in 1780. We should also mention our diasporic ancestors such as Yanga from Mexico, Carlota from Cuba, and Lemba and Touissant L’oveture from what’s now known as the Dominican Republic and Haiti respectively.

There is much that we can learn from each other. To a certain extent, those Africans from Latin American were able to retain more of their cultural heritage from the mother continent than those of their brethren that were sent to what eventually became the United States. It’s evident from those of us that are practitioners of Santeria, Lucumi, or Candombe; all believed to be sub sects or variations of the Yoruba faith. Drumming is still a part of Afro Latin culture, as well as certain African-based styles of dance and fighting arts that are taught and passed down from generation to generation. There is also much that we have learned from our northern brothers and sisters. We’ve learned from our fiery revolutionaries to be proud and accepting of our African roots and features. We’ve learned about organizing and mobilizing ourselves to fight for our rights as a people. We’ve learned that we are not alone in our struggle, and that there are those that we can call to help us in our time of need…especially in this day and time, with many Afro Latino ancestral lands being taken from them by their respective national governments.

I had gotten into an online spat a few months ago on another networking site, with the site being dedicated to authors of African descent. The forum posted on this site was about dedicating May as ‘Latino Book Month’, celebrating the achievements of Latino writers on the site. One particular troll had to post a negative reply, being highly disrespectful towards Latinos, and our history. This situation was quite sad and comical; sad because this person chose to expose his ignorance and prejudice towards a people that he obviously knows nothing about, and comical because of the fact that, this person was contradicting his online handle that was supposed to connote his high level of (supposed) intelligence, and his responses in our argument were written so atrociously that a third grader would have been embarrassed by his writing skills…and this person is a published author! Quite obviously, he was an idiot suffering from ITGS (Internet Tough Guy/Gal Syndrome), and he was thoroughly trashed. The site creator was thankful for my responses, having been quite upset with this poster’s comments. We’re not so far apart as others would want to make it seem. We are kindred spirits, brethren, long-lost cousins. We are a part of each other, connected on a deeper level, spiritually and culturally. You have suffered as I have suffered; have had blood shed as we have had blood shed. Let us share our pain and experiences, and take this to the next level.

To be continued…..

Author's Note: This is a re-post of the second part of the original article series written by the author for another site that the author is no longer associated with. Thanks to the assistance of the creator of BU, the first part of this series has already been posted on this site, and was encouraged to post the other parts of this series here as well.

Tags: afrolatino, article, black, commonality, culture, heritage, history, issues, series, solutions