True Left

https://www.yahoo.com/news/talk-cloak-racial-innocence-latino-160507227.html

90% of the 10.7 million Africans forcibly brought to the Americas as survivors of the Middle Passage, were taken to Latin America and the Caribbean, in contrast to the 3.5% taken to what we now call the U.S. After the abolition of slavery, state actors and white elites maintained color hierarchies and exclusion with a racialized logic regarding the inferior intellect of Black people and cultural inadequacies of Indigenous communities. This racial logic continues to be perpetrated today to such an extent that it materially constrains Afro-Latino and Indigenous from socioeconomic advancement.

I would also add that most the Latin American gene pool is full of patrilineal bloodlines of conquistadors ("white" supremacists by definition) and matrilineal bloodlines of women who were at least Eurocentrist enough to choose to give birth rather than commit suicide after being **** by conquistadors, and at most Eurocentrist enough to proactively seek out conquistadors for sex. Therefore we should not exclude a likely heritable component to the Eurocentrism currently prevalent.

When Latinos enter the U.S., their racial baggage comes along with them and continues to be passed along to younger generations as part of Latino culture. As an Afro Latina raised in the U.S., too often I’ve heard a relative say “Look behind the ears,” fearing a newborn infant has the potential to develop a dark skin tone. But Latino familial vigilance against Blackness does not stop with the inspection of ears. There is a vampiric attention to sun exposure that may deepen the darkness and thus “worsen” a child’s appearance.

Even Latinos who are thought to be blessed with European features are policed by their families when it comes to dating and marriage. The obsession with mejorando y adelantando la raza, or “improving and advancing the race,” by marrying lighter (ideally whiter) partners means each potential suitor is sorted out for taints of Blackness.

My own journey of collecting the stories of the victims of Latino anti-Blackness across the country revealed that Latino anti-Black bias in the U.S. causes long-lasting injuries. However, the Latino cultural self-image as racially innocent interferes with addressing the instances in which Latinos are agents of racial harm. This is because racial innocence hinders self-recognition of the problem and the motivation to make the changes necessary for racial progress. Instead, paltry rationalizations like “an intense moment of frustration and anger” are offered.

An apology and resignation from the Nury Martinez’s of the world are insufficient implements for dismantling the systemic racial innocence and creating social change. Instead, we need to enhance our racial literacy about the nature and extent of global anti-Blackness.

I dislike the term "anti-Blackness". The real problem is global Eurocentrism, in relation to which "anti-Blackness" is merely a side-effect since "blackness" is what "whites" view as most distant from "whiteness":

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/the-curse-of-ham-or-hamitic-myth/msg5069/#msg5069

and therefore the quest among Eurocentrists to become "whiter" implies avoiding association with "blackness". Stop wanting to become "whiter" and hostility towards "blackness" will disappear by itself. On the other hand, any attempts to end "anti-Blackness" that does not involve openly attacking Eurocentrism will get nowhere.