#afro latinx

[tsulas]

I’ve just about had enough of summer…

[oldtranswizard]

Afro Hispanic thoughts on main

idk that anyone will see or care for this but idc. the shame is long past for pan-Afro voices. call me "extra" or stereotype me as an angry Black woman. once i can bring up my own Afrolatinidad, my culture & my Black caribbean roots without having others, especially latinos, go full anti-Black on me, be they white latino Pacific-Atlantics or even fellow self-hating Caribbeans, then that's the moment i can well & truly say my Blackness & the experience of the life in it as is brings me all the joy & not also pain, & even then thats a weight to be healed. my degree of biracial-ness included. because why must so many pan-Afro people across the diaspora be made to carry their Black roots like a cross? aren't we free of the chains yet? when images are reproduced for me with whips as the punchline, am i supposed to find them funny? i think the fuck not. why do we latinos get brought up with "Blanco" as a compliment & the approximation to the peak beauty ideal, and "Negro" as an insult or the object of pity? why was i compelled to laugh as a kid whenever it was brought up that my great-grandfather, a stern but sensible hard-working man who faithfully married a dark-skinned woman, hated Black ppl & refused to meet his own Black grandchildren? i still carry the anti-Black slurs i got called as a child as is. "negrata" with Spaniards, the hard-R with the rest of the world... there also seem to be issues in common with those of us biracials who grew up with a white or even just white-passing mum, even if mine has some Afro roots as well, just not as many as my dad. but really, enough with the Black suffering. it can be a crazy upbringing, and with crazy i mean desolating & confusing. i need to integrate myself with some more hopeful stories of Black Excellence & success when everything that's thrown at me is Black trauma, or else that's how we inadvertently fall into self-loathing.

not to mention how the difference between ethnicity, nationality, and race seems to be whooping people's arses sometimes.

[rickchung]

Beba (dir. Rebeca Huntt) x DOXA 2023.

Huntt crafts Beba into a haunting Afro-Latinx autobiographical documentary about a New Yorker's cultural past. She stitches together a movingly unvarnished visual poem of a hungry biracial artist trying to define herself through a mixed ancestry of conflict. It's a thoughtful summation of someone struggling to define themselves while addressing internalized anti-Blackness.

Screened at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. as part of the TIFF Docs program.

[luvmesumus]

[odinsblog]

Willie Bobo • Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries

[granvarones]

my brother nicholas was born on christmas day in 1979. this is why our mother chose the name nicholas - in honor of saint nicholas who is believed to be the inspiration for santa claus aka “saint nick.” this is probably the only time my mother acknowledged saints that were not divas like diana ross, princess diana and tina turner.

nicholas was three years younger than me and a lot of what i witnessed, experienced, and survived as a child, was done with him by my side. he was my first audience. he’d watch me lip sync and dance to songs by the mary jane girls, janet jackson, en vogue, the good girls and paula abdul well into our teen years.

nicholas loved hip-hop. when he was just 10 years old in 1991, he purchased vanilla ice’s debut album. something i am sure he’d deny. but ya know, i recently heard “ice ice baby” and no shade, vanilla kinda snapped with that flow. but i digress.

nicholas’ favorite rapper was kool g rap. he loved driving. he loved having a car. he was driving at age 12. he was funny as hell. he’d punch anyone who dared call me a “faggot” in the face. and he loved being a father.

my brother nicholas was murdered on may 9, 2001. he was 22 years old.

we didn’t grow up celebrating birthdays, but those were spent together. there were no birthday cakes, but we did have tasty cakes. we had each other even when we didn’t think that was something worth having.

i remember almost everything. i refuse to forget. sometimes i feel i have a lack of evidence of our lives together because we don’t pictures together during our teen years. but i refuse to forget. it is the sharing of our stories that i document his existence.

today, i am wishing the biggest and happiest heavenly birthday to brother nicholas. i will speak your name over and over and over. i love you.

[havatabanca]

[sbrown82]

How come every time I say I’m Hispanic, people automatically assume I’m Dominican??? 🤨🤦🏾‍♀️