Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality

Fordham University law professor Hernández (Multiracials) debunks in this tightly focused and persuasive study the notion that “Latinos can’t be racist.” Spotlighting prejudice against Black Americans from Latinos who consider themselves “white,” as well as the stigma faced by Afro-Latinos, Hernández contends that “negative attitudes toward Blackness in general and Black Americans in particular develop long before [Latino] immigrants land in the United States,” and that Latinos in the U.S. can be more racist than even native-born whites. Drawing on recent legal cases, she shows that Afro-Latinos have faced similar struggles to African Americans when seeking equal access to public spaces, educational institutions, workplaces, and housing, and that many incidents of discrimination were perpetrated by “white” Latinos in places like Miami and Puerto Rico. Hernández also claims that Afro-Latinos suffer more negative health outcomes than Latinos “socially perceived as more European descended”; details episodes of racialized violence committed by Latinos, including Peruvian-American George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin; and describes how her own mother’s “darker skin tone and African tresses” were disdained by her Puerto Rican family. Lucid case studies, diligent research, and the author’s willingness to tackle controversial topics head-on distinguish this distressing examination of racism’s insidious effects. (Aug.)