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

by Hernández, Tanya Katerí

• ISBN13: 9780807020135
• ISBN10: 0807020133
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-08-23
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

“Profound and revelatory, Racial Innocence tackles head-on the insidious grip of white supremacy on our communities and how we all might free ourselves from its predation. Tanya Katerí Hernández is fearless and brilliant . . . What fire!”—Junot Díaz

The first comprehensive book about anti-Black bias in the Latino community that unpacks the misconception that Latinos are “exempt” from racism due to their ethnicity and multicultural background

Racial Innocence will challenge what you thought about racism and bias and demonstrate that it’s possible for a historically marginalized group to experience discrimination and also be discriminatory. Racism is deeply complex, and law professor and comparative race relations expert Tanya Katerí Hernández exposes “the Latino racial innocence cloak” that often veils Latino complicity in racism. As Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group in the US, this revelation is critical to dismantling systemic racism. Basing her work on interviews, discrimination case files, and civil rights law, Hernández reveals Latino anti-Black bias in the workplace, the housing market, schools, places of recreation, the criminal justice system, and Latino families.

By focusing on racism perpetrated by communities outside those of White non-Latino people, Racial Innocence brings to light the many Afro-Latino and African American victims of anti-Blackness at the hands of other people of color. Through exploring the interwoven fabric of discrimination and examining the cause of these issues, we can begin to move toward a more egalitarian society.

Author Biography

Tanya Katerí Hernández is an internationally recognized comparative race law expert and a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, where she teaches anti-discrimination law, comparative employment discrimination, and critical race theory. A Fulbright scholar, Princeton and Rutgers fellow, and former scholar in residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, she specializes in comparative race relations and anti-discrimination law. Hernández is the author of multiple books, including Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination.

Table of Contents

ONE
What Is Latino Anti-Blackness?

TWO
“No juegues con niños de color extraño”:
Playing and Learning in “White” Latino Spaces

THREE
Working in the USA

FOUR
“Oye Negro, You Can’t Live Here”:
Latino Landlords in Action

FIVE
Physical Violence:
The Criminal Justice System’s “Brown” versus Black Dynamic

SIX
Latinos and the Future of Racial Equality in the United States

EPILOGUE
On Being an Afro-Latina Interrogating Latino Anti-Blackness

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index