my response to "Black and Latino"

Wow, this essay is funny. Sadly, what Santiago is going through in life are the solid remnants of a structured social system of inequality. At one point if an individual had a drop of African blood, guess what, they were African. But it was more resourceful to turn us against one another and construct separation and lines of petty differences so that we could also be at odds with one another. The cycle is sick, but the deed is already done and changing the mind set of the masses is nearly impossible. Spanish, Latino, whatever, I say they are Black. I'm with the theory that Africans were dropped off at different parts of the world during the slave trade (and of course before the slave trade, they did migrate over the world according to their own will) and in this process, as generations were passed and babies were born, pigmentation acclimated to changes in region and so on and so forth. Either way you see, the Caribbean is full of blacks, Spanish speaking countries and islands have devout African ancestry and that's just that. Despite the color differences, and slight differences in cultures, we are all cut from the same cloth, and as Santiago's Aunt outlined to him; even if the American won't accept you as black, you can always count on the white to treat you as such.