00:00Black news outlets, when they tell the story of Afro-Latinos, it's like, when I discovered
00:09I was Black, and it's like, no, like there are millions of us who have always known we
00:15were Black, always known we were Latin American, and are very proud of that, you know? Like
00:20I, when I was little, I was like in elementary school, I was visiting Panama, my tia, she,
00:25I told her, I was like, I don't really like the word negra because it reminds me of the
00:29n-word, and she nearly cussed me out and was like, we are negras, that's who we are, like
00:34calling me morena washes down my blackness, like, I am proud to be negra. So, you know,
00:39my family is Black, Black, Blackity, Black, Black.
00:41I love that. No, it's funny, I have a friend who's Dominican, she says, she's like, I love
00:46essence, I'm nerdita, and I want to ask you guys about language, right? Like you ladies,
00:50about language, because you're saying like, coming from an American standpoint, it's triggering
00:56because of what the n-word, and what words have been used here, that might not have that
00:59same heaviness in other cultures. Well, there's certain words that throughout is
01:05still going to be a trigger, like mono, which is monkey. And like, that's actually a nickname,
01:11I believe in Dominican Republic, and I'm like, no, no, do that. And I've had Dominican friends
01:16who think that, oh, that's cute, and I'm like, no, I don't vibe with that. But, you know,
01:21morena, negra, there's, you know, there's certain way, and it's really the way that it's said,
01:26almost. Because you can tell if somebody's saying it to you, like, oh, morena, come with
01:32that. And then it's like, negra, like, okay, really? That's what we're doing today?
01:37Well, negra is even like a term of endearment. Yeah. You know, so like, and even if you're
01:41not Black, like, your boyfriend, your partner will say like, ay, ven acá mi negra. So it's
01:47like, it really depends so much. Funny story I had, when I was, well, not funny, it was
01:52horrendous. When I was living in Guatemala, I was like living and working in an Indigenous
01:56community, and I was walking down the street, and this man called me morenaza. Morenaza is,
02:03it actually comes from like slavery. So it's, it's very loaded term, like in terms of how Black
02:09women's bodies were exploited. So it's like, you know, you're this Black treat, essentially,
02:15I literally lost my mind. Like, I went to, I think I channeled like all of my ancestors,
02:20like, I was like cursing him out in Spanish and English, like at the same time, like it
02:26was ridiculous. Yeah. And my, the person I was working with was like, what are you? And
02:30I had to do like a whole explanation. But it's exhausting. Like, that's the thing. Like,
02:34we're being oppressed, and we still have to teach people about our oppression. Like, for
02:39me, like, I, we have to put the onus on other people, like all the people who are saying,
02:43like, Amara is taking pills. Yeah. And, you know, like, we don't understand how you can be Black
02:49and Latino. It's like, it's not our job to teach you. You know, Toni Morrison said that racism is a
02:54distraction. And like, so is all the rest of it, right? Like, this is all a byproduct of white
02:59supremacy. And we all have to do our learning, like, or we're just not going to get free.
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