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Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and The Pursuit of Racial Justice: An Interview With Sonia Lee - Excellent Piece On Anti-Racism Against Latino Americans
Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and The Pursuit of Racial Justice: An Interview With Sonia Lee - Excellent Piece On Anti-Racism Against Latino Americans
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By Devyn Spence Benson ! December 3, 2016 " 3
First Name
jobs. Urban renewal led black and Puerto Rican migrants to live in
The
increasingly segregated public housing projects. These processes
Connections
remained outside of the control of poor blacks and Puerto Ricans, but
Between
their poverty was blamed on their cultural pathologies. It no longer Urban
mattered that some Puerto Ricans were lighter-skinned and others Development
were darker; their entire culture was marked alongside black culture and
as deprived. As black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers fought against Colonialism
the racializing impact of the culture of poverty discourse, they By Paige
Glotzer | 1
developed a common antiracist sensibility.
Comment
Black and Puerto Rican members of Local 10, ILGWU, before The Impact
the public hearing at the New York State Commission for of Student
Loans on
Human Rights, May 15, 1962, A. Philip Randolph (front-
Black Wealth
center). (International Ladies Garment Workers Union
By Devin
Records, Kheel Center, Cornell University) Fergus
Race,
The War on Poverty and the black freedom movement provided vital Property, and
organizing spaces for blacks and Puerto Ricans who became invested Economic
in each others liberation. The War on Poverty created a exible History: An
ideological space in which Puerto Ricans could redene their racial Introduction
Manny Diaz giving a tour to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Each authors posts reect
on the Lower East Side, c. 1963 (Courtesy of Andrea Diaz) their own views and not
necessarily those of the
African American
Benson: With the election of Donald Trump, it seems more Intellectual History Society
important than ever for black and brown communities to work Inc. AAIHS welcomes
together to resist institutional racism and white supremacy. comments on and vigorous
What lessons does your research oer for contemporary Latin@ discussion about our posts.
We recognize that there will
and African American partnerships?
be disagreement but ask
Lee: Now, more than ever, we must make a choice to build unity that you be civil about such
across dierence. To create a people of color agenda that does not disagreements. Personal
insults and mean spirited
recognize the particular challenges that each community faces is
comments will not be
oensive. To ignore the common challenges that blacks and Latinos
(and so many other marginalized groups) face in this post-Trump tolerated and AAIHS
world, however, is senseless. So when we talk about the challenges reserves the right to delete
that we face today, we can frame undocumented immigrants fear of such comments from the
blog.
deportation as a Latino issue; Muslim womens fear of wearing a
hijab as a Muslim issue; the struggle against the Dakota pipeline as a
Native issue; or we can simply view all of these as an attack against
CONTRIBUTORS
humanity.
Some readers may not be familiar (or only dimly familiar) with the
Puerto Rican quest for independence and self-determination. This
short list could be considered essential reading for an introduction to
the history of that struggle:
[And let President Obama know your support for the 73-year-old
Puerto Rican political prisoner, Oscar Lpez Rivera. For basic
information, please see:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/01/why-is-obama-ignoring-
pleas-to-release-political-prisoner-oscar-lopez-rivera/ ]
, Patrick S. O'Donnell | ! December 3, 2016 at 9:19 am
I belatedly noticed that I did not use the latest iteration of my list
above, so please consider these titles as well:
Falcn, Luis Nieves. Violations of Human Rights in Puerto Rico by the
U.S. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Puerto, 2002.
Fernandez, Ronald. Prisoners of Colonialism: The Struggle for Justice
in Puerto Rico. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1994.
Fernandez, Ronald. The Disenchanted Island: Puerto Rico and the
United States in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, 2nd ed., 1996.
Rivera, Oscar Lpez, A Century of Colonialism: One Hundred Years
of Puerto Rican Resistance, in Joy James, ed. Warfare in the American
Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2007: 160-189.