Before People Called Me A Spic, They Called Me A Nigger
It was a throwaway line I used. Deliberately. Speaking to mostly Latino and African-American audiences. Back in the day.
“Before people called me a spic, they called me a nigger.”
And it hit the mark.
The hoots, applause, whistles and laughs let me know. I’d found a nerve. And I intended to probe. When I felt that arrow’s reverb, I launched it again. Aimed squarely at calling out what separates us. Latinos/African-Americans. Even what separates Latinos from ourselves. And. What also ties us together.
Drawing from all my observations. And, experiences (through the ripe old age then of 19. Worldly motherfucker).
This wasn’t about having yet another “dialogue” with white folks about racism. Always open to new hearts. But. Done that (even at 19. “Murica,” como dicen la gente). My intent with that phrase was to call out all the bullshit within US. Because, MAYBE. We could free some chains that tie individuals and groups down. And then, go on to bigger things. Like, coalitions for real change across the country. But first: entre la familia. Among the family. That’s right. Our family. Latinos AND Blacks. That slave ship made many stops. South Carolina AND Havana. Brazil AND New Orleans. Haiti AND Virginia.
But like so many other things I/we thought had been settled…
Hey, WE’VE called out the #Oscars! Fight your own battles! Motherfuckers tryin’ to die-LOOT our shit. Now the damn ASIANS tryin’ to cut in. Go startcha OWN shit! No you DON’T know how I feel. You CAN’T know how I feel! We were KIDNAPPED damn it brought here in CHAINS. As SLAVES. Was no “immigration” jive no “illegal alien” crap! What the FUCK do you know? Damn tryin’-to-be-white-tedrubio bastards…
Over in the Spanish-speaking seats: You see this skin color I’m pointing to on my arm? Does it look Black to you? No, YOU pass the soda, I look like a damn slave? My people are from Spain, not monkeys from the African jungle. We’re not all Democratic patsies like you; that’s why Cruz and Rubio make Trump nervous and there’s more coming every day. Even Hillary is floating the idea of a Latino Vice-President. How long you molletos been in this country? The Hispanics are passing you by and more of us are coming!
Division that would have made J. Edgar COINTELPRO proud. That high-yellow shit among Blacks, that Do I look like a slave to you crap among Latinos that necessitated the Y tu abuela donde esta’ stiletto of a comeback. “There’s no Black in my family.” “ You just think you’re better than us.”
West Indians vs Black Americans, Puerto Ricans vs Mexicans, island Dominicans vs Dominicans from New York, Northern Blacks vs Southern Blacks, light-skinned/dark-skinned even Brooklyn niggers/spics vs Bronx niggers/spics…damn. We have been programmed to stand apart. Programmed, to get our ass kicked. In smaller groups. Filter in woman/man, social classes, religions, gay/straight…amazing we can even get up in the morning. To start arguing all over again.
The virus keeps spreading. The arguments on college campuses and Twitter. Re-Peats of “positions” that seem new only to a new generation. Unaware of the pitfalls. Stand proud, yes. Take action, yes. But without diluting the movement - UNITE ALL WHO CAN BE UNITED.
And it should be so easy to make connections between Latinos and Blacks, you see why those in charge would do everything to stop it. Folks: we live near the bottom of most socio-economic indicators. Even with some advances, Blacks and Latinos still have far to climb to even reach “comfortable.” That alone builds a commonality. There’s also a bit more:
THE SLAVE SHIP
Square One. For a good many Latinos, African-Americans, and people of the Caribbean, that is our link. To music, dance, cuisine, religion, history. And, a politics to build upon. We may be different shades of black. But we be Black. African. That one drop thing has truth. Now, we are a New World Black. I mean, we ain’t African. Proud of Africa. But we gone through the looking glass. Among Latinos we’re also Spanish and Indigenous. In some Latinos, the impact of slavery is much more pronounced. Among others in the New World, the European blend could be French, or Dutch, or British or Portuguese. The Indigenous element might be Mayan, or Taino, or Incan, or Muscogee, or Carib or scores of others. But the African element. Is like no other.
My parents and I were born in New York City. My grandparents are from Puerto Rico and Cuba. Except for my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother we are all dark-skinned. “Obviously” of African descent. But that guaguancó gene is lying within practically all Latinos with raíces in Africa. So, you might be light-skinned, and you might marry a light-skinned Latina, but hello! One of your babies might be a nappy-headed rhumbera. Took my people a while to figure out genetics. There was a lot of fighting at first about where that baby came from…
Now, yeah, I’m joshing a bit. But the truth is that in some families, the dark-skinned ones sometimes caught hell. Yeah, that racist self-hate thing permeated everywhere. But the moms and grandmoms especially, circled protectively. Bien conmigo, negrita. Ten cuidao con mi negrito. As Pedro Pietri said in his epic poem Puerto Rican Obituary
“Aqui to be called Negrito/Means to be called LOVE”
Negro. Black. Negrit@. My little Black one. It became such a term of endearment that often skin color had nothing to do with who you were tagging. You could be very light-skinned and Cuban and still be called mi negro. Unless you’re Ted Cruz. It just meant you were being affectionate. Because that underlying Blackness was in some ways in all of us. Though you figure Marco Rubio has tried every day to scrub Blackness out.
Of course, because Oshun puts obstacles and assholes in our path to make us stronger, there are some of us who are, as Malcolm said “Negroes out of their minds.” House negroes whose identity is buried in master. Light-skinned — - even dark-skinned — - who swear they’re white. “What’s the matter Boss - WE sick?” (Man, Malcolm was flippin’ great. Some Times op-ed guy wanted to know why there weren’t more Latinos at least proud of Rubio and Cruz being some kind of “firsts.” Because most of us know they are Cubans about as proud of their African roots as David Duke would be of his. House negroes). Crazy Latins who think they’re “Spanish.” “Hispanics.” Yes, I hate that word, though I’ve become more tolerant with age. I know what you “meant.” Perhaps it’s not with that white undertone. But it still connotes a dominance of Spanish roots to the exclusion of African or Indigenous. Which is not only a lie but offensive. It perpetuates “African” or “Black” as “inferior.” “Submissive.” “Slave.”
It’s how owners and general managers of “Spanish” radio stations for example cover the absence of salsa on their airwaves by calling it a “barrio” music. Barrio should be said with a pride. But from their lips it becomes that despised “other.” Oh yes: you rarely if ever hear salsa even on New York City “Spanish” radio stations. A bitch, ain’t it?
Let me narrow the lens here so you get a better sense of how this breaks down for an individual. Because we each have a story. And man, write what you know. Exhibit A:
MI FAMILIA
I was lucky. My Dad got his head right in the Navy at 18. “Before then, I was like most Puerto Ricans. I thought I was white.” Take a look at him again. “You know, descended from the Conquistadores.” He said this with a bit of exaggeration, accented with tossing back his head as if getting all those imaginary “conqueror” flowing locks out of his way. “We were cool with Blacks. ‘Negroes’ or ‘colored people’ back then. We partied together, went to school together. Like we did with the Italians. Remember, Spanish Harlem was different back then. But while we knew we weren’t Italian or Jewish or Irish — - except your Uncle Harry, he thought he was Italian. And he looks like me — - we also knew we weren’t Black. So we got caught in the middle. If you were light-skinned, it was easier to pass. And many did. But if you looked like us, you had to be crazy thinking you could get away as white. But that’s how screwed up our minds were.”
Dad’s mother, Paúla, was as dark as night. Her mother had been a slave in Puerto Rico, and her mother was born in Africa and brought to the Americas in chains. My grandmother was a Santería priestess. Unlike the Hollywood mumbo jumbo, it is a legitimate branch of a major religion, Ifa, whose roots go back to the Yoruba in southwestern Nigeria. The spiritual force of Ifa was carried with Africans throughout the New World, and took on many shapes as seeds were planted in many soils.
Pops was sent as a boy to visit his grandmother. “She completely flipped me out. I had never seen anyone like this. Dark, like your grandmother. But tall. Carried a machete off her waist. Grew her own tobacco and rolled her own cigars. Wore that kind of African headdress [géle] you know like Miriam Makeba. Spoke Spanish, a little English, and this African dialect, like the musicians on the Cuban albums. Lucumí. Took no bullshit. The men in the village were afraid of her. There were these frogs that spit a venom that could blind you. I made friends with a kid, and we hid in the grasses by a stream, and spit on some men passing by. They chased us, and I ran to my grandmother, who pulled that machete. ‘You will not touch my grandson!’ Yeah, she was bad.”
Raúl Guzmán joined the Navy after seeing Anchors Aweigh. “I thought I was Frank Sinatra.” Assigned to the aircraft carrier Midway he became buddies with a cat from the South. Johnson. “They would show movies on the flight deck. One time I found seats up front. They used these wooden folding chairs. ‘Come on Johnson I found a couple!’ He pulled me back. With that Southern accent: ‘Guhz-man, that’s fo’ the white boys. We got to sit in the back.’ There was still Jim Crow in the service then, even though it was 1945.”
“ ‘Fuck that, we’re fighting a war for democracy. We beat the Nazis. We can sit anywhere.’ I went up front, and sure enough a group of white boys kicked my ass and threw me into the wooden seats in the back. Johnson helped me up. ‘Guhz-man, ah TOL’ you ‘bout those white boys.’ ‘But I’m Puerto Rican!’ ‘They don’t care what kind a nigga you is, Guhz-man.’ ” My Dad told me that story once a year. Even after I went to college. “You remember that! Because you’re a BLACK Puerto Rican! We’re not white!”
EVERYTHING I FIRST LEARNED ABOUT NIGGERS AND SPICS I LEARNED IN CATHOLIC SCHOOL
Near the beginning of first grade, my folks pulled me out of PS 3. And dropped me into Our Lady of Pity. My class was all Italian kids, one Irish kid, a Black kid. And me. For about five years I got beat every day. Sometimes I got beat by Puerto Rican and Black kids when I made it back to the Melrose Projects. A target with my OLP tie and matching blue pants and white shirt. “Let’s see if the bitch takes pity on you now, stupid!”
My first day at Our Lady of Pity I was put behind Harold Harris. “You’re a nigger!” I was…stunned. I had never heard this word before. My folks had taught me to look up new words in the dictionary. Gosh. No nigger. I did find “niggardly.” “Cheap.”
Dad came home from his job promptly at 6 as manager of a nearby Strauss Store. “So how was the new school?” he boomed before the door had even closed. “Okay, I guess. Some kid called me a nigger — -” “WHAT?!” “Yeah, I didn’t know what it meant either, so I looked it up like you and Mom said, but the closest I could find was ‘niggardly’ which means ‘cheap.’ Why’d he call me cheap, Dad; I would’ve given him a nickel if he’d ask.”
“ ‘Cheap?’ ”
To this day I swear he cut himself off as he said “You stupid — -”
My mother ran in from the kitchen with a spatula. “You’re not a nigger! You’re Puerto Rican and Cuban!”
The next day in class, first chance he could get without Sister seeing him, Harold Harris turned around. “You’re a nigger!” “I am NOT. My mother says I’m Puerto Rican and Cuban.” “Then you’re a nigger and a SPIC!”
He didn’t even pause.
Now, my Mom was not quite as “woke” then. Certainly not as she became, and is now. It’s still a touchy subject; but she was a “good hair/bad hair” person. Occasionally reminded me to casar con una blanca para mejorar la raza. Marry a white woman to better the race. Oh yeah. This was a common saying.
She don’t want to hear any of that shit now. And it still comes hard for her to admit that was once her world view. But at a recent family gathering she had to admit the story my cousin Gil and I told was no exaggeration:
I was about 16 and had just gotten my first ‘Fro. My cousin Gil had followed suit. We were in my room reading comics. I was lying face down off the bed, When I felt drops of water.
What the hell…
“JESU’ CHRISTO!”
A short fat man with a bucket of “sanctified” water went into the room, showering me and Gil. “Holy shit!” “You see!” my mother, crying, told her witnesses. “That language! You see how these boys have become!”
“JESU’ CHRISTO, SACA ESTE DIABLO QUE TIENE ESTOS MUCHACHOS, ESTOS INNOCENTES, TU SERVIDORES!” Phony fuckin’ holy water all around. Even on the comics! “He was an altar boy! They both were!” “That’s right Mom and I know real holy water! This is an act!”
More wailing. The fat sacred god of water was Tony, the rather recent boyfriend of our neighbor Ondina. Part of the extended family. My folks had broken up. Which was devastating. And confiding in this schmuck was a price we had to pay. That chasing the Devil would make our Afros go away.
PALOMINO AND CUBA AND TUSKEGEE
When Mom came out of that kitchen after that first “You’re a nigger!” day at Our Lady of Pity; sternly reminding me I was both Puerto Rican AND Cuban; that Cubano thang came from her father. Mario Palomino. Who arrived in the U.S. through Ellis Island in 1920. He had been born in Santiago de Cuba. And came to the States to attend Tuskegee Institute. That’s right. In Alabama. Years later in Spanish Harlem he met the Puerto Rican woman who would become mi abuela, Belén Marrero. But until his last breath, he was really the de facto patriarch of our family, and ruler over the subdivisions set up by his two daughters.
In many ways coming from Cuba, with its rich African history, and then spending four years among African-Americans in the Deep South, Palomino was more “roots” than Dad. Whose Blackness came after he was “woke” in the Navy, and after that, seeing things through a new lens. In that sense Dad was similar to my Uncle Louie, who married my mom’s younger sister Lillian. They were part of the next wave of fuck you Ricans who had come of age dealing with the racist shit that is at the core of America. From inside America. Raúl and Louie had learned to accept and love their Blackness, their African-ness. And they passed that on to me and my cousins. My grandmother Belén, born in Puerto Rico, was light-skinned. Her daughter Lillian took after her, while my Mom had her father’s brown complexion. Lillian’s oldest, Gil, looked like his brown skinned Dad. The younger one, Mario, was like his Mom (the even younger one, Nick, had a bit of everything. And while we’re at it, my sister Tanya, from my Dad’s second marriage, is half African-American and all brown and loves her Blackness).
My grandparents’ house on East 115th Street became a port of call for later waves of Cubans. And because my grandmother’s son from her first marriage was the famed singer Joe Valle, the best of both islands cut loose at the house all night. Both parents were sensational dancers. So that Afro-Cuban swing was programmed into my DNA. Not just from LPs. But there, in person, Machito, Graciela, Bauza, Patato, Noro. Later in our apartment in the South Bronx, Puente, Barry Rogers, Tjader, Chombo. And if you don’t know, that music is as African as it gets outside the Motherland. So the bonds with heritage were strong. And of course - the food. Comida criolla. Chitlins to y’all was cuchifritos to us.
“Cornbread! Hog maws and chitterlings!”
DAD MAKES SURE HIS KID GETS THE WORD
When I was like 12, Dad took me to hear Malcolm X on 125th Street. An outdoor rally with hundreds of cheering African-Americans. And a score of suddenly out of place mostly white police.
It was almost scary to hear a Black man speak so much truth, say so much that made you think, amplified by a sound system, with hundreds shouting out in support. Including my father. It was almost scary to even laugh along at the pointed truths he also told with so much humor. Later Dad said, “Your mother was nervous about me taking you here. She thought a riot would break out. But I knew. And I wanted you to listen.”
“He said some great things, huh?” “Yeah,” I answered, still taking it all in. “And he was funny.” “A lot of people miss that. They think he’s all fire and brimstone. They think his words are just ‘Hate this’ ‘Hate that’ ‘Hate the white man.’ But if you listen, it’s much deeper. And it’s also, ‘Be proud. Be proud of your color, and your nappy hair.’ ”
Yeah. A lot to think about.
Actually, my grandfather had taken me to 125th Street earlier, in September 1960. There was a huge crowd of people outside the Hotel Theresa. Fidel Castro, on his first visit to the UN, had decided to bypass the luxury hotel the State Department had offered. And the compañeros y compañeras chose to stay among el pueblo en Harlem.
My grandfather had been all for the demise of the dictator Batista. Hoping that democracy would bloom. Later he was disillusioned by Fidel’s turn towards the Soviets. Had Palomino lived, we would have had wonderful arguments about the U.S. government trying to undo the gains of the Revolution and leaving Fidel little choice; and why Fidel should have made other choices down the road. But Grandpa died of a sudden heart attack eight months after we went to the Theresa. And it is one of the great empty spaces in my heart. As when my Dad was called home.
That scene outside the Theresa was far from empty. Black folks were cheering the Cubans like they too were part of sticking it in Uncle Sam’s white eye. And when anyone in fatigues stepped out on the balcony people shouted “Fidel!” “Che!” no matter who it was. It felt like, if the white folks ain’t comfortable with Fidel that’s all right with us.
BLACK AND LATIN LIKE ME
Like most of us, I have experienced all sides of the racism disease.
- ** The Black cab driver who picked me up when no one else would, only to slam those fuckin’ Puerto Ricans all the way to the Bronx and then complain when I paid the fare with no tip (“Recuerda cuando estaba hablando de los Puertorriqueños como mierda, puñeta” “Oh shit, you one of them?” “Yeah baby”)
- *** The Puerto Ricans in Philly who went out looking for random Blacks to beat up because some Black gang members had raped a woman and her daughter in their home in front of her husband; and when we Young Lords confronted them, some who were former Young Lords, about what might result if they attacked just anybody Black, we almost fought each other. “Why do you love the fucking cocolos (niggers) over your own people?”
- *** The next morning, passing out leaflets to keep the peace, a young Black gang member put a knife to my throat and quoting the leaflet in his hand yelled “Who the fuck you calling Black? Motherfucker I’m COLORED!” Holy shit. He jumped past Negro. 1973.
*** Interviewing a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of White People on my radio show and getting him to admit he’d met his match he responds: “Well Pablo you clearly as a Porto Rican have a lot of white man in you.”
- *** The day I landed in Federal prison. In Tallahassee. 1973. Chained to the guy in front and the guy behind. Chains on my wrists and my legs. Having to shuffle up to a table of redneck guards. “Prisoner 7–8–6–2–0 sir.” He looks down. “Says here you’re Porto Rikken boy.” “Yes sir.” Head comes up. “Look like a nigger to me.” Pause. I hold up my chained hands. “I’m not exactly in a position to argue, am I sir?”
On the other hand:
- *** A light-skinned Puerto Rican from Brooklyn is on my basketball team in prison. A Black guy on the other side starts a fight with him and calls him a white boy. My guy floors him but says “Motherfucker I look WHITE to you! I’m Puerto Rican! My HEART is Black!”
My family kept me aware. Just as we all have to do now.
My parents and I watched what was going on Down South every night. The dogs, the hoses, the cattle prods. All those really ANGRY church goin’ whites who said niggers and therefore spics couldn’t be REAL Americans. Couldn’t vote. Couldn’t sit at the same counter for lunch. Couldn’t be EQUAL. “They,” Dad said, pointing to Black folks marching, “are us. And Down South is up here, too.” They don’t care what kind a nigga you is Guhz-man.
Like most of my Latino friends, my parents’ Afro-Latin jazz was at first not my main thing (idiot). Took me a few years to get wise. But James Brown, the Temptations, Aretha, the Beatles — - YEAH. So when Joe Cuba hit with “Bang Bang” and Ray Barretto with “El Watusi” and a flood of Latin Boogaloo numbers followed, my friends and I were there. Latinos and Blacks on the same groove? Oh man! And it was an easy pivot for Black guys to go up to Latinas and ask “Hey baby, can you Latin?” Or all the vices versa. Like, can you mambo or cha cha? There was mucho unity developing on the dance floor. Through now, like Stevie Wonder doing “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,” a straight-up cha cha.
We have that slave ship in common. Why run away from that now? We’re the ones that landed and survived. Even today we’re learning more about the African roots in places like Vera Cruz in Mexico. In parts of South America where we thought the African touch was minimal. Somos familia. But the engine for a better day, then, and now. Is picking up where the civil rights marchers left off. Building on Malcolm, Stokely, Rap, the Panthers. My boy Bob, a Black classmate at college, and I went to the Panther office in Harlem to join up. And were scared shitless. These women and men were intense. We didn’t think we were ready. Several months later we were starting our own group. A mainly Puerto Rican group. With other Latinos. And Blacks. Including Bob. Inspired by the Panthers. That is, militant. Pero con mucha salsa.
Hey baby: Can you Latin? Because they don’t care what kinda a nigga you is.
“Before I was called a spic I was called a nigger” became the title of one of the audio essays I did in Palante ( by photojournalist Michael Abramson and the Young Lords Party; recently republished and re-edited by Iris Morales and Denise Oliver-Velez). It was also used in a collection called The Afro-Latin@ Reader, by Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores. Recently, thanks primarily to circulation on Twitter (and take a bow @CivilJustUs for sparking that convo) a lot of folks are talking about it. Asked for more. So, please read and discuss. Gracias, y’all.
