Black Lives Matter
July 1, 2020
To our Latina[x] and Xican[x] communities and to you of shared concern:
Escribimos con coraje.
Escribimos con urgencia.
Escribimos con esperanza.
The murder of George Floyd was the spark that led to the uprisings across the world: another murder of an unarmed Black man by a white male police officer. What made it different, this time around, was that this cop had his hands in his pockets staring back in defiance at a Black teenager by the name of Darnella Frazier, who filmed him in the act of murder. She ensured that we all witnessed what took place. After all, he thought himself entitled, after all he believed he would never be punished. After all, to him, the Black man under his knee was less than fully human. End of story.
But it is not the end of the story. Soon after the recording was released people took to the streets to demand justice. Weeks after Floyd’s murder people continue to fill the streets across the U.S. and the world demanding an end to police brutalities for Floyd and countless Black people killed by state-sanctioned violence: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Freddy Gray, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Megan Hockaday, Rayshard Brooks, and on and on.
Raza, we write to you today because, in the face of this growing movement of political outcry, our Latina/o communities weigh heavy in our minds and hearts. Perhaps this letter is not for you. Perhaps you need no convincing that as Latin[a]x peoples we have personal and political stake in the Black Lives Matter movement. But for others, at first glance, these protests may seem very black-and-white and deeper questions arise:
How do we see ourselves as Latina[x] peoples in the United States in relation to race? Do we see our own familia beneath the knee of this horrific act of arrogance? Or are we the ones kneeling there with our hands in our own pockets of prejudice? Have we not felt the knee of American racism on our own collective neck? Have we not seen anti-Blackness within our own familias and communities? Where do we stand? How can we as Latina[x]s support and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement?
Gente, this country owes us a great deal for our labors, our abiding faith, our intent on raising the next generation with strong ethical values. In the face of COVID-19, we continue to bring food from the fields to our tables, to provide service in hospitals as service workers, nurses and nurses aids and in doctoring. We are the frontline grocery store and restaurant workers; we are the unprotected caretakers for the young and old; we teach young and old. We are elbow to elbow in the packing plants. What this plague has made evident to us all is that our children, our grandchildren, our students are not immune to white supremacy, the same state-sanctioned disease of racism that Black people suffer. But we are not here to compare oppressions, only to cite what we share in our common. Our own Black, Brown and Immigrant communities are disproportionately affected by the virus. It has now gone west to Tejas and Arizona where Raza abound.
There comes a time and place to challenge authority. And this is the time.
Hasn’t it been enough to see our own children in cages, separated from their parents? This alone should be enough proof that the United States does not value us as a people, except when it’s time to enter the voting booth. We, too, must call the names aloud of Andres Guardado (Los Angeles), Eric Salgado (East Oakland) – both killed by police in the last month. Let us call out, en voz alta, the name of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old Fort Hood soldier, sexually harassed and bludgeoned to death, disappeared and discovered more than two months later. These are our own Brown children, fodder for foreign wars and wars at home.
As Maestras and students, we open this conversation about race, one which Latina[x] communities often do not engage in publicly. Many of us are more vulnerable to racism than others by the color of our skin, our native tongue (whether español o un idioma indígena) and our citizenship status. Whether U.S. born or “legalized” immigrants, we carry with us the unexamined racism from our countries of origin, including the United States. We must unify against this enemy of internalized racism. It’s difficult to recognize and to admit that in our investment in becoming/being “American,” some of us have turned our backs against the recent waves of immigrants from Central América, the vast majority of whom are Indigenous and Afro-Latina[x]. This is what it means to be Raza, to see ourselves reflected in one another. Nuestra comunidad incluye personas afrodescendientes, asiaticas, mestiza/os, indígenas y blancas.
In the U.S. Black, Native and Latina[x] communities are deeply connected by shared histories of oppression, struggle and resistance to white supremacy. There are Ethnic Studies departments throughout this country because of the political courage of African Americans who took to the streets in protest to birth the civil rights movement in the 1960s. They were our courageous examples of face-to-face struggle that challenged authority to save lives. And from that example, we too como ‘Raza Unida’ drew the courage to take to the streets, to strike in agricultural fields and stage sit-ins in government capitals and university administrative offices. We, too, protested to stop wars and police brutality; demanded a living wage and healthcare reform; secured union contracts and protection from pesticides. We too fought for an equitable education for ourselves and our children. All this informs the Immigrant Rights movement we witness today. Indeed, Immigrant Rights relies heavily on the tactics and strategies of the people of color movements from fifty years ago and the women of color activism over the decades that grew with it. It is important to remember: Black Lives Matter is a grassroots movement founded just six years ago by Black women. History matters and instructs.
Compañeros, in the spirit of solidaridad, talk about anti-Blackness with your familias -- con los jóvenes, con las tías y los primos, los abuelos y bisabuelos. We write to you today to remind you that when we fight for the rights of Black communities, we fight for our own. We need to see ourselves reflected in this movement for Black lives and work in solidarity with Black communities for social justice, especially within our shared neighborhoods and school districts. Perhaps then, come November, in common cause with Black communities, we could very well form a united voting bloc that removes Trump from office. But removing Trump is not enough. We must address the twisted roots of racism and misogyny that grew us a Trump -- for fear of our lives -- into office in the first place. Perhaps more insidiously than any virus.
There is a freedom road we can walk together across borders and across this country. Because of Black Lives Matter movement, the map to finding it has become much clearer.
En gratitud y solidaridad,
Cherríe Moraga
Celia Herrera Rodríguez
for Las Maestras Center
P.S.
In response to these concerns regarding both COVID and the BLM movement, we want to hear from you. What are your questions, concerns? What do you/we need to learn, to say? Please email us at: LasMaestrasUCSB@gmail.com with your ideas and suggestions. Thanks to Chicana/Chicano Studies for input into this letter.