The Afro-Latinx Experience Is Essential To Our International Reckoning On Race

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In Tijuana, raised fists show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

In Tijuana, raised fists show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

Let's pause the music for a bit and talk through some things.

In three segments, we're going to have a conversation about how Afro-Latinx folks often get left out of national discussions about Blackness and, in particular, the Black Lives Matter movement. Petra Rivera-Rideua, of Wellesley College, and Omaris Z. Zamora, of Rutgers, help us wade through layers of complexities. Our newest contributor to the Alt.Latino family, NPR publicist Anaïs Laurent, lends her considerable knowledge of Afro-Latinx culture and reggaeton to the conversation.

"I don't think that the media, on a national level, is doing the work to understand that Blackness is heterogeneous," Zamora says.

"There are Black Latinos, there are Afro Latinos who very much a part of Black Lives Matter and the experiences we're talking about," Laurent adds.

Jasmine Garsd, former Alt.Latino co-host and now a senior reporter at Marketplace, follows up her recent interview with Dominican musician and novelist Rita Indiana to discuss (en español) Afro-Caribbean Blackness and discrimination.

And since Independence Day is around the corner, we end the show with a meditation on a Spanish-language translation of "The Star-Spangled Banner." You can read the full story from Marissa Arbona Ruiz via Palabra.

Celebrating difference is what makes our society great. We hope, as support for Black lives grows and evolves, that this episode offers some different context. — Felix Contreras