Shout Out to the Black Latinas Know Collective

On April 30, the Black Latinas Know Collective emerged publically into the world through a tweet:

Welcome to The Black Latinas Know Collective! Today we affirm that our experiences are critical to any scholarship about Latinos/as/xs. There can be no “Latino Studies” without our perspectives. Read our statement: https://t.co/DgVvTZSZln

— Black Latinas Know Collective (@BLKCLatinasKnow) April 30, 2019

Proclaiming that Latinx Studies is nothing without Black Latina experiences, their website offers an inspiring and challenging manifesto, a collective of impressive scholars in a range of fields, and a blog. When they burst into the world on twitter, they invited people to retweet their favorite lines from the manifesto, and wow, did people respond!

My fav? “We reject translators, ventriloquists, and representatives in conveying our view of race and inequality.” https://t.co/SXxOcAW8jO

— Jomaira Salas Pujols (@JomairaBSalas) April 30, 2019

Love this: “An over-representation of white and mestiza Latina/o/xs in scholarly accounts of race reproduce the very racial exclusions that the scholarship claims to address.” #BlackLatinasKnow #BLKC #WeKnow https://t.co/G3hVFspscm

— Zaire Dinzey (@zairedinzey) April 30, 2019

“WE DO ALL…in service of something greater than ourselves. We aim to dismantle systems that oppress marginalized peoples at the intersections of multiple categories of social difference, including race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, ability, citizenship, and language.” https://t.co/qZ0bEGB8ge

— 🌵Dra Megan Figueroa🏜 (@megandfigueroa) April 30, 2019

From early experiences of having our Latinidad and Blackness questioned, to dealing with white Latinx standards of beauty that exclude us, to being invisibilized, to being designated as incapable of occupying our places as professors, intellectuals, and knowledge producers 👇🏾 https://t.co/QN1KOE2mO7

— Laura Loyola (@wawisloyola) May 1, 2019

We’re both delighted to be able to signal boost the BLKC and the amazing work they’re doing.

And a couple more places to learn more about AfroLatinidad:

• NPR Story on Amara La Negra.
• Latino USA has done several episodes on AfroLatinidad.

Advertisement