To Miami’s Hispanic Majority — Now’s the Time For You to do Better
And it starts with ownership
I’m from Miami, Florida, so naturally, I have a preferred Publix. I’m chronically late, and I was advised by wildlife specialists on how to run away from an alligator when, not if, we cross paths.
Since leaving Miami for Chicago, I feel oddly like an outsider when home.
I know it has to do with the rampant racism within the city touted for its exoticism and ‘melting pot’ diversity.
A lion’s share of America’s current racist state is tacked upon corrupt, inexperienced, and prejudiced White folks but, in Miami whiteness is a silent ruling party as Latinx and Hispanic demographics are Miami’s majority and dominate with stringent exclusivity.
Tweets like these expose some of the truth:
After seeing this tweet last week and feeling a tinge of validation, the comments told a different story. Blaming the racism of White Cubans as the true villainy here completely shuffles off onus. A successful swing and subsequent miss.
The nation has forced White people to take up activists posts at work, in church, at dinner tables, Thanksgivings, and Christmases, and astoundingly they’ve done just that! White people are reading and watching, they’re listening, speaking out, and beginning to earnestly “do the work” that minorities have pleaded for.
Now what about the rest of the class?
When the incubus becomes — Now you, Latinx, Hispanic, Indigenous, East Asian, South Asian person, do the same by telling your friend that word is a slur, that joke is not funny, that name is not ghetto, the crickets begin and the chat seemingly fills with ‘whitness is the problem! down with Whitey not me!’. It’s laughable.
Now’s the time for Miami’s largest racial and ethnic demographic to own its sins of exclusion and rampant ethnocentrism.
Now’s the time to assume blame because, in truth, the blame belongs to many.
White indignation, lawlessness, theft, and supremacy has indeed poisoned the worlds wells but minorities who continue to lose sight of their otherness, the “target” on their back, the rights they have because others marched, fought, and died, unbeknownst that the cities they call home were built by those they assume steal, lie, and are untrustworthy — continue the poisoning.
Racism is not a larger than life three-headed dragon we’re incapable of imagining or tackling. Knowledge on it is as accessible as ever and an ignorance of it is inexcusable.
There is no better time for the Latinx and Hispanic communities of Miami, and those around the world, to deconstruct internalized racism passed down through generations.
