Fordham Law Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández explores the motivations and insights behind her timely and thought-provoking work, Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality, in this Q&A with Rolling Out.
According to the author, Tanya Katerí Hernández, the concept of racial innocence refers to the idea that Latinos are somehow “exempt” from racism — an assumption she argues is dangerously inaccurate. As the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, Afro-Latinos are vital in any effort to dismantle systemic racism.
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What was your purpose in writing Racial Innocence?
As an Afro-Latina, I’ve had the unfortunate “privilege” to be privy to the seeming schizophrenia of Latino racial attitudes — where assertions of being a racially mixed population immune to racism coexist with very problematic anti-Black attitudes. When I began observing how judges and juries were confused by allegations of Latino anti-Black racism in discrimination lawsuits, I felt compelled to bring my life experiences into the analysis of these cases.
Read “Tanya Katerí Hernández unmasks Latino anti-Black sentiment” on Rolling Out.