When Latinx People Use the N-Word

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/gina-rodriguez-n-word-latinx.html

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On Tuesday, the actress Gina Rodriguez found herself the subject of social media shaming after posting a short clip of herself using the N-word while singing along to a Lauryn Hill rap verse. The “Jane the Virgin” star quickly deleted the clip and responded with a pat “sorry if you were offended” video, followed by another apology, this time as a note on Instagram, sharing vague promises of near-future self-reflection.

The flap was surely amplified by Ms. Rodriguez’s checkered track record when it comes to the black community; on multiple occasions in the past couple of years she has been rightly called out for espousing anti-black sentiments and pitting Latinx women and black women against one another.

But even ignoring Ms. Rodriguez’s history, the incident sheds light on an ugly truth about the unsettling comfort many Latinx people have with saying the N-word and the right they claim to have in using it. It also underscores a complicated dynamic between two marginalized groups, and what it means for them to experience both solidarity with and division from one another.

In urban neighborhoods across the country — from Corona, Queens, where I grew up, to Compton, Calif. — African-Americans and Latinx people live in close quarters, often segregated from whites through institutionalized or historically racist practices. As such, a cultural exchange has emerged naturally over decades, one that exists across local business cooperation, community organizing, cuisines and, notably, lexicon. African-American Vernacular English and Spanish-language slang come together outside the bodega or at the park.

In these multiracial neighborhoods, concerns and anxieties about discrimination and racism — especially when it comes to policing and policymaking — are inevitably shared by both groups. Because they are often targeted by the same forces as African-Americans, Latinx people can feel similarly aggrieved to the point of identifying their mistreatment as racist in nature.

But there are points at which the divide becomes more visible, or at least more complicated. In some cases, Afro-Latinx people make up a large part of the community — early in her career, the rapper Cardi B, who identifies as black and Latinx, found herself defending her blackness and her right to use the N-word after facing criticism.

And there are large portions of the Latinx population who do not identify as black (and may even identify as white). While it is arguably permissible for those who present as and identify as Afro-Latinx people to use the N-word without facing scrutiny (the criticism against Cardi B, for instance, has quieted as her star has risen), those who’d mark themselves as both white and Hispanic on a census form are a different category altogether.

Complicating this further is the ubiquity of American hip-hop as the prevailing youth culture. What once chiefly served as the sounds of urban artists speaking to their peers and neighbors has turned into the premier genre of choice for young Americans across races, dominating streaming platforms and heavily populating the Billboard charts. Given that the word’s appearance in songs serves as part of a reclamation of the word by black artists and isn’t intended to be used maliciously, many young people, regardless of skin color and including Latinx people, don’t see repeating the word in rap lyrics as problematic.

One of the summer’s biggest stateside smashes, “Otro Trago” by the Panamanian reggaeton singer Sech, features two distinct utterances of the word by the Puerto Rican rapper Darell. Some 19 weeks into its run on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the bad optics of a nonblack Latinx artist using the word on a song led by an Afro-Latinx artist evidently haven’t harmed its popularity.

These factors have led to a mind-set among Latinx people that they get a pass in using the word. Yet when defending themselves, they rarely address the bleak history of the word. In a recent Buzzfeed interview, the SoundCloud rapper Lil Pump pretended the controversy didn’t exist, and freely used the word throughout the conversation.

And during a recent appearance on the New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97, the Puerto Rican and Cuban-American rapper Fat Joe equated Latinx people with African-Americans, adding that they “may even identify themselves with African and black culture more than black people.” The comment prompted debate online, in part because his own long history of casual N-word usage fundamentally overlooked how the slur is weaponized against blacks in ways it cannot be against nonblack Latinx people such as himself.

The same can be said for Ms. Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, another Latinx performer, who faced similar backlash nearly 20 years ago for using the word in the remix to her 2001 song “I’m Real.”

Ms. Lopez, a Puerto Rican raised in the Bronx, had assumed that her background would shield her from objection. As a Puerto Rican raised in Chicago, Ms. Rodriguez assuredly assumed that singing along uncensored with one of her favorite hip-hop songs was a harmless act, one that millions of Americans do every week in their homes, out together with friends or en masse at rap concerts.

Perhaps within their inner circles and among their black friends they are able to use the word without consequence — the rapper Ja Rule, Ms. Lopez’s featured guest on “I’m Real,” defended her. (She also claimed in the midst of protests and opposition from major radio personalities over the single that it was he who wrote the lyric for her.) But as public figures whose language choices affect a greater number of people with different experiences and perspectives, it reflects poorly. And each star failed to understand the gravity of the word and its relationship to black pain, responding in tone-deaf, defensive non-apologies.

There is no justification for any white or white-presenting Latinx person to continue dropping the N-word knowing how hurtful it still is to Afro-Latinx and black peers, among whom a wider and arguably more contentious debate over its use as colloquial reclamation remains.

Only the eradication of the N-word from the Latinx vocabulary can truly rectify things going forward. Latinx people suffer our share of prejudice and demonization, and we ought to take an empathetic position in our own circles to end our role in adding to the suffering of our neighbors.

Gary Suarez is a music critic and writer born, raised and based in Queens, NY.

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