Twice within barely a week, I’ve caught wind of white Puerto Ricans whipping out Puerto Rican identity and/or diaspora experience as a shield against criticisms of racism or criticism in general. The first instance infuriated me and the second is meme bait, but both have provided a catalyst for some issues I’ve been thinking about for a long time, especially since I share identities with and have the same amount of privilege as the people who instigated these incidents.
The first is Soho Karen, the white woman who assaulted a Black teenager at a hotel because she assumed he’d stolen her cellphone. Sporting a “Daddy” cap in an interview on a national news network, she claimed that she can’t be racist because she’s Puerto Rican, so she’s “like a woman of color.”
I want to unpack how asinine, harmful, and disrespectful this phrasing is in this context.
First off, colorism and anti-Blackness is pervasive in Latinx communities and Latin American countries, Puerto Rico included. Non-Black POC are absolutely capable of anti-Black thought, language, and actions, just as white people are absolutely capable of racism in all its forms. Being Puerto Rican doesn’t absolve you from the attitudes and ignorances white supremacy handed to you.
Now, this phrase “like a woman of color” has layers and implications that I doubt Soho Karen understands because if she did, she wouldn’t have attacked that boy (Yes, I know she used “like” as a pause in her speech and not a comparison).
Being a Latina with copious amounts of white privilege who didn’t come out of the womb looking like a white baby, but got that way over time, and has often gotten comments like “you look mixed, but I can’t tell with what,” I am constantly aware of this in-between space I occupy. In some situations, I’m read and considered a POC. In many other situations, I’m read and considered white. So, sometimes I’m “like a woman of color.” But that’s not how I navigate through the world 100% of the time.
Since intentionally connecting with Latinx communities online and through church ministry, I’ve grown a deeper understanding of the history and ancestors that created Puerto Ricans. Both the people and the culture of the island are a mixture of European colonizers, the Black slaves they brought to Puerto Rico, and the Indigenous Tainos who lived there before the colonizers arrived. All Puerto Ricans have these mixtures, culturally, genetically, or both.
So if Soho Karen is not racist because she’s Puerto Rican and if she’s “like a woman of color,” then why did she assault a boy whom a potential distant ancestor somewhere in her lineage might recognize as their own?
I think it’s because white supremacy and its buffet of racism has enabled her disconnection from Puerto Rican culture and history so that she only needs to disclose her heritage when she believes it can get her out of trouble. That’s the only time she will claim it and otherwise she has the privilege to hide it.
Because you see, I used to weaponize my ethnicity in the same way. I recognize this logic and this tactic. Being Puerto Rican was simultaneously something I felt I wasn’t allowed to own because of various factors that made me believe I “didn’t count” and a convenient way to get out of any negative implications of being white. So I only claimed it and lived into it publicly when it was beneficial.
Doing this is so screwed up, but white supremacy enables this because it will absorb anyone who looks white enough into its fold and manufacture all sorts of small and large benefits to those who assimilate and self-erase. Puerto Ricans who do this and then use their Puerto Rican heritage as a defense against being racist erase Black and Indigenous ancestors. It elevates the colonizer over the colonized within the self and it makes perpetuating racism easier because you have no concept that the target of your racism may well be kin to your own ancestors. Because you believe whiteness when it says “this is what you are and only this; anything else you are does not count; it’s not seen.”
But reconnection, education, community-building, and engaging with Latinx art, literature, and culture are key components to stopping this force of whiteness from further erasing the Blackness and Indigeneity that shape the places we come from.
If Soho Karen knew her Puerto Rican heritage, she’d know that many ingredients and cooking styles of Puerto Rican food came from African slaves. She would know that many aspects of Puerto Rican music and dance come from Black people. But she doesn’t know that, which is why she has no idea what she’s doing when she invokes her Puerto Rican heritage as a shield or when she says she’s “like a woman of color.”
The more we connect to our history, the less space white supremacy has to occupy our minds and inform our actions. If you are going to claim your ethnicity, you need to claim all that it entails and decolonize yourself accordingly.
Just as being Puerto Rican should not be wielded as a shield against being called out as racist, being in the Puerto Rican diaspora should not be invoked as a shield against criticism for a very ill-informed Twitter take.
I had to use screenshots because it’s hard to follow the logic of this thread and summarize it in a way that makes sense. This author has some elitist beef against fanfiction and used all sorts of random arguments to try to prove their point, but here we have an invocation of Puerto Rican diaspora as a pre-emptive shield against being criticized for flashing complete ignorance about fanfiction’s role in housing queer and other marginalized stories.
This Puerto Rican diaspora author is really saying “honor your ancestors” like the Tainos whose ancestry they carry, even if it’s in small amounts, didn’t have oral storytelling and retelling traditions. Once again, if you’re going to invoke/claim your Puerto Rican heritage as a defense like this, fully understand everything you’re claiming. Being Puerto Rican is great, but it does not give you the right to disparage a medium you haven’t taken the time to understand beyond the three mainstream examples you know about without criticism. This invocation very much reads like someone who believes that being a POC lets you say whatever you want. Hence, it’s another example of the privilege involved in publicly declaring this identity when it’s convenient, but not at any other time.
When our existence in the world is such that people may not see that we’re “mixed with something” or have a diaspora experience, we have the choice to live into and declare that identity daily or to passively let the erasure erase it. The former is more work, but worth it and will require you to humble yourself in the face of what you went your whole life not knowing.
Maybe you weren’t taught Spanish growing up. Maybe you’ve never been to Puerto Rico. Maybe you’ve never eaten a plantain. No matter what goes into your Puerto Rican identity or diaspora experience, you are not above criticism or responsibility for your thoughts and actions. This otherized heritage we have can’t be treated like a costume when darker-skinned Puerto Ricans don’t have the chameleon option like we do.
If you’re going to talk about ancestors and “being, like, a woman of color,” do a long, hard think about what that truly means.