This week, lets talk about race and racism. Let's talk about Cultural appropriation. Let's talk about why black lives matter, but many of the reactions around a recent case of appropriation left many Black Latinxs asking  - where is the solidarity in our community when it comes to black voices and black lives.

I invited la Doctora Barbara Abadia-Rexauch to speak about an article published recently on another case of a white woman putting on the Latina costume. Something actual Latinxs are not able to do, and certainly with none of the privileges that this affords.

The article published on Prism Reports by the journalist Tina Vazquez revealed that a prominent lawyer / activist in the New York community was actually not Puerto Rican and Colombian as she had presented, but instead a white woman from Georgia with Irish Italian and Russian ancestry. Recently, and due to the demand for accountability, this person has resigned from her position at the National Lawyers Guild and faces community accountability.

Dr. Bárbara Abadía-Rexach is a communication scholar, sociocultural anthropologist, and Afro Puerto Rican feminist and antiracist leader. She received a BA in Public Communication and a MA in Theory and Research of Communication from the University of Puerto Rico, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin. Abadía-Rexach is Assistant Professor of Afrolatinidades at the Latina/o Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Her academic work explores racialization from different cultural productions in Puerto Rico and its diasporas, and within the Latinx communities. She is the author of the book Musicalizando la raza. La racialización en Puerto Rico a través de la música (2012). Her recently published academic articles include: Summer 2019: The Great Racialized Puerto Rican Family Protesting in the Street Fearlessly (2020); Centro y periferia: Las identidades en el nuevo movimiento de la bomba puertorriqueña (2019) and The New Puerto Rican Bomba Movement (2016). She is one of Colectivo Ilé’ community organizers, and a member of the Black Latinas Know Collective. Abadía-Rexach produces and moderates the radio program NEGRAS at Cadena Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico. She is a collaborator of the Spanish digital platform Afroféminas, and the Puerto Rican feminist and solidarity journalist project Todas. 

Articles to read/share:
https://www.prismreports.org/article/2021/1/7/the-national-lawyers-guilds-outgoing-latina-president-is-a-white-woman

https://www.prismreports.org/article/2021/1/14/attorney-who-posed-as-latina-resigns-and-faces-community-accountability

https://www.blacklatinasknow.org/post/the-replay-white-passes-and-black-exclusions-in-latinidad?fbclid=IwAR2qe91ZUzkXZNhEWp9n0m0F0Jgy94hLKe6TzheeFIWtweXmNAzd8sSSSqw