Too Latina to be Black, Too Black to be Latina is something that talks about some of the things Aleichia Williams has experienced as someone who is black and Latina. As she continued to get older, she noticed that people tried to fit her into a specific category solely based on her skin color. In today’s society, many people believe if you have a dark skin complexion and kinky hair that you’re automatically African American and find it hard to believe when you tell them you’re Hispanic. The same way they automatically assume someone with a lighter skin complexion and a loose hair texture couldn’t be fully black. I am someone with a dark skin complexion and a loose hair texture and as I got to middle school/ high school people found it hard to believe I was fully black. They would ask me if I was Hispanic and when I would say no they would be shocked. Although I could have been Hispanic and black at the same time, it still blows my mind that they would still question me that I was just African American, as if African Americans are only known to have kinky hair. It kind of shows that society’s way of thinking is very weird and not broad at all. I really enjoyed reading what she wrote because there are so many people who experience what she experienced on a daily basis which shouldn’t happen.
“The power of identity politics” by Alicia Garza talks about identity politics and how white people see it as an issue because those who aren’t white like to identify with groups that are actually the same as their own individual identities. White people wonder why people of color always have to see everything as a race thing and can’t just identify as human beings since that’s what everyone in the world is. I liked how she mentioned “Those who have power rarely want to acknowledge that they have unearned benefits at the expense of others”. White people will always have some type of power that people of color or those who aren’t heterosexual/ cisgender white people don’t have, even if they don’t like to admit it to themselves. So why would we want to identify ourselves with the norm in the United States when we clearly live outside of it and we’re never considered a part of it. Deep down inside we know white people know we are all not equal even if we all have equality. They don’t care to acknowledge they are held at a higher pedestal than others because they don’t see anything wrong with it. They continue to benefit from it so why would they want change.
I really liked Isabella Celentano’s snapshot because it says “It is one thing for black women to deal with racism, but it is even worse when dealing with colorism in your own community”. This is something I think summarizes what Aleichia and many others who are afro latino go through because although they are apart of both groups (black and Hispanic), they often face discrimination since they don’t look like the norm.
