Some Thoughts on Those in the Out-Club

I have seen a few stories on the "interesting" stories on the controversy surrounding the criticism of the Emmy nominations. The fact is that certain groups of white and Mestizo voices including the Hispanic Caucus criticized the Emmys for having no Latino representation. The problem is that Latinos HAVE been represented in not only nominations, but have won...but those people are Afro-Latinos aka they black. For all the talks of "La Raza" and mestizaje and "racial democracy" coming out of Latin America and the Latino community in the United States, the facts-on-the-ground have finally come to the surface and like here in the USA, black folks in and of Latin America aren't considered legitimate. I watched a talk a few weeks ago called Centering Blackness in Afrolatinidad in which Afro-Latinos talked about their experience with being Afro-Latinos in Latin America and the United States and their thoughts on Latinidad. At one point they talk about something that I had wondered about. I had for years noticed that certain Afrolatinos, specifically those living in South America would refer to themselves as, besides Negro (the Spanish word for black), Afrodesciende which means Afro-descended in English or just Afro. The fact of the matter is the long obviousness that the white-mestizo polity in Latin America sees black people as legitimate to "la "raza" as white anglos see African-Americans as "Americans". These speakers of the online discussion said they don't accept Latinidad because Latinidad has made it clear that it doesn't accept them. So while they use the term as a matter of convenience and a historical/academic place-name (which I can certainly understand), the Latino part is simply not as relevant in a positive way to them.

African-Americans have long shared the spoils of hard-fought gains with others of the African diaspora like Afrolatinos for the fact that "their" supposed co-ethnics feel no need to do so and this is one of the clear examples of that. Seeing Afro-Latinos or the Afrodesciende people of Latin America raise their voices in the digital age has been an experience. The tradition of erasure in the Spanish-speaking world is coming undone and I am glad to bare witness to it.