A New Day, An Old Hell: The Tired & Purposely Erroneous Latinx Discourse
What fresh hell can this be? — Dorothy Parker
Every morning, against my better judgment, I open several social media apps to stay in the know. Yeah, I know. I’ve found, however, Twitter to be the place to stay up-to-date with things. Since I seem to be a sadomasochist, I know once I’m in I’ll be highly enraged, depressed, disappointed, demoralized… for building my life and career around the Internet, social media, and a mind-blowingly hapless ethnicity.
You see, I’m a scion of the internet. I was born in it, molded by it—wreaking havoc through it when AOL Dominican chatrooms reigned supreme.
I left broadcast TV and cable then and never looked back. I live here now. I’ve found old friends and bonded with new ones online. I’ve met wonderful people. I’ve learned. I’ve gained. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I’ve broken bread with some and gotten intimate with others. I know this simulation through and through and despite my propensity to be an afro-pessimist, I harbor an ill-conceived hope that things will get better—that we will be better to each other, but alas. Public discourse leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ve been afraid of changing, though, of going back to the way I used to be, the way I used to exist because I know what it means to be disconnected and solely receiving the news from the carefully curated and masterfully sinister MSM… So, I built my life around social media and the Internet, unfortunately. I often wonder if being ignorant about what truly plagues our communities is better than being informed but I quickly remember the confusion, the self-flagellation, the internal and external chaos I lived in, and the anguish that it caused me. I prefer to know my enemy, our enemy, and be in possession of a burning rage 24/7 even if it’ll send me to an early grave.
I do take, once in a while, my sabbaticals from this hellscape—to rest, to write, to reestablish old, forgotten boundaries, and recalibrate the brain. One must—for sanity’s sake. At least to keep the little wits I have left. Unfortunately, to truly know people, I’ve found, one must also dwell where they share their thoughts. Thoughts they wouldn’t normally vocalize in person. I don’t see social media as more or less dangerous than the “real world.” I don’t believe we are more “fake” here. People are multitudes. We are different people to different folks. We lie, embellish, and curate the hell out of ourselves in “real life”, too. Social media is an extension of that—of ourselves. What we share, how we share, what we don’t, who we engage, who we don’t… speaks volumes to me.
We all exist, for the most part, in multiple communities—whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not.
Take those of Latin American descent (Latino, Hispanic, Latinx), for instance. We’ve all been bundled up ( and not necessarily juntos y revueltos) and forced to check “yes” on boxes that really don’t apply to swaths of people who have little in common with us. Be that as it may, we are forced to navigate mainstream America, corporate America, social media, and even so-called multicultural spaces as an equitable, cohesive, colorblind unit. So, people who have no business repping us are tapped to speak for us, to reach out to us, to earn money on our behalf while throwing us under the bus just because we refuse to adhere to highly conniving respectability politics, tone-policing, racism, colorism, featurism that give them unearned privileges. Privileges and positions of power they swear up and down have all to do with their hard work, their character, and not because they are palatable to a bigger oppressor.
Most western cultures have racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic… hierarchies that we all exist in. The same is true within and with Latinidad. The same is clearly apparent with this purposely distorted discourse on the term Latinx.
Everyone takes what Hispanic platforms, agencies, politicians, celebrities, media, and leaders say at face value—especially if they’ve been validated by white America (and sponsored by multinational corporations, Hollywood, the media, the publishing industry, orgs, Wall St and DC).
Take the head of LULAC, for instance. NBC Latino reported his organization won’t be using the term Latinx because it isn’t used by and doesn’t resonate with the majority of Hispanics, since, according to him, most of our people don’t use Latinx and neither do our abuelitas:
"I don't know of any abuelita (grandmother) that calls her granddaughter, 'Hey you Latinx, I'm going to throw you the chancla (flip-flop).' It just doesn't happen," he said.
The way I guffawed at such a ridiculous statement. I’m sure “ Hey you Latino” and “Hey you Hispanic” are our abuelitas’ warcry before smacking us with a chancleta. This is the best white America thinks we can do, folks.
Rep. Ruben Gallego puffed out his little cis-white hetero Latino chest and stated the following:
What a mighty good man. Un macho de hombre. Bless him.
The mixed bag that is Latino Rebels, had its newly minted senior editor “report” (double-down) on his highly suspicious disdain for the word by using the purposely misinterpreted survey that has been going around convincing unsuspecting gringos and Latin-gringos that calling us Latinx is a cardinal sin. Sigh.
[He even quoted a racist, sexist, colorist “think tank” who should disappear from the public spotlight for the aforementioned, and, get a load of this, union embezzlement. He also hired the Latinx dudebros who sexually harrassed and belittled Latinas during Bernie Sanders's first campaign for the presidency, got rehired for the second one after the scandal went public—because cancel culture doesn’t exist for white Hispanics—and made millions of dollars while at it. After they lost, he went on and made a Super Pac in support of President Joe Biden with Jeff Weaver. Cancel culture my ass.]
Wait a minute, it’s all coming back to me now:
Ah.
Who else debates the humanity of people like that and still gets a job in an “indie” magazine that keeps getting cited, funded, boosted by entities that should know better? What happened to the power the PC Police and Cancel Culture had? And who exactly are they? Black people? Trans people? Nonbinary people? Indigenous people? Black and Brown women?
To be fair, Latino Rebels, like all of MSM, tends to publish different authors with different views from different fields. Hell, they’ve republished some of my work. Some of you found me through it. But they are no longer tapping me to give me a boost because I dared challenge their leadership for their shameful support of the highly racist, colorist, xenophobic In The Heights musical. [Though they are now balking at Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.] Very fair, mature, and balanced. Kudos for not blocking, unfollowing, or soft-blocking me, though. We all must have room for growth and that won’t happen by completely “canceling” each other for calling each other out.
I would love, however, for our leadership, for the few of our folks in media, for our celebrities, for our politicians, for our influencers, for our so-called experts and geniuses to come correct and not let people who don’t have our best interest at heart easily bamboozle us and have us at each others’ throats because we don’t do our due diligence as these good Latinx folks have done:
I beg of you all to please read things carefully. Don’t pay much mind to these surveys and “experts”. They are highly unreliable and have no shame in siphoning a ton of money that could be going to our communities instead.
Don’t let them guide our conversations. Don’t let them frame things in such a maliciously cunning way that even “our best” parrot and report their rhetoric without questioning it, without having the slightest idea that this manipulation of information is just a means to an end: to make money out of us by claiming to be authorities on us when they are extremely far from it. This is all about gaining and retaining power.
Our literal lives depend on unapologetic, uncompromising, and accurate voices that can’t and won’t be bought and clouded for clout and money—at least not the ones that come from the very entities and people that oppress us.
Unlike many of these respectable professionals and contrary to popular belief, I am a consistent and generous writer. I care very little for transactional relationships because I don’t see human beings as objects that can be used, abused, and discarded—as stepping stones that can either help me come up or come down. I don’t need yes-people and perpetual cheerleaders from our communities (I don’t believe anyone should stay in “their place” or “their lane”) because I carry no airs of superiority—even if I’ve navigated certain spaces and know people who have a lot of pull in this extremely sick society, this extremely disparate ethnicity. If you are wrong, you’re wrong. If you are right, you are right. And, I’ll make it my business you know it. Trust.
For that reason, I’d like you all to take a second to read this piece by Latino Rebels’ founder, Julio Ricardo Varela, published by MSNBC. The headline is terrible and misleading, but he brings several great points, some of which I’ve made before, republished in Latino Rebels.
And, to show you that I am public with my thoughts, here is my tweet praising and encouraging people to read his work.
Language is very important, but we shouldn’t be pedantic about it—especially if we’re going to punch down with it. Believe, women, nonbinary, trans, Black, Brown, folk are not the powerful elite who sit on ivory towers in academia, Hollywood, the media that are oppressing our communities or being extremely paternalistic with them as these people would have you believe. It’s these cis-hetero men and women who hardly know them, know us, but choose to speak for and over us because these corrosive systems have and continue to give them money and platforms either because they don’t know or don’t care. It’s usually the latter. And it’s a damn shame that there is no kinship, no allyship, no loyalty from other marginalized groups who should also do their due diligence and act on it like some of us have, but alas.
That said, I don’t just live in theory. I practice what I read and preach regardless of how it’ll affect my career, my reputation, my livelihood.
I suggest you all do the same for the sake of your credibility. That especially goes to Latinx leaders, journalists, politicians, celebrities, influencers, and academics.
I’m not holding my breath, though.
I have little faith in their words and history is my witness.
This old and tired and purposely misguided and erroneous discourse on Latinx tells me all I need to know about our state of affairs.
We are fucked.
God help us.
P.P.S. Watch this and see how this data has been (purposely and shamelessly) misinterpreted:
A mainstream or indie magazine would usually pay me between $250-$450 for one of my pieces. Since I decided to go solo for the sake of keeping my voice unedited and uncensored, I created this website. Keeping it afloat and these pieces coming is not just time-consuming, but it’s also costly because it angers a lot of those same mainstream papers and magazines (along with their donors) for calling them out—so their favorite retaliation tactic is deplatforming. Especially of unapologetic and unhypocritical Black and Brown voices. Ideally, I’d like to raise between $250-$450 per piece and many of you have actually stepped up to the plate and helped me accomplish that. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you would like to see more of these and support one of the few unbought indie voices, please contribute:
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César Vargas is an award-winning writer, advocate, strategist, speaker, and social critic with a loyal following and a robust social capital that spans from coast to coast: Editors, journalists, celebrities, activists, artists, executives, politicians, and multiple communities. He was named one of 40 Under 40: Latinos in American Politics by the Huffington Post. He’s written about internal and external community affairs to several news outlets and quoted in others: The Huffington Post, NBC, Fox News, Voxxi, Okayafrica, Okayplayer, Sky News, Salon, The Guardian, Latino Magazine, Vibe, The Hill, BET, and his own online magazine—which has a fan base of over 25,000 people and has reached over a million—UPLIFTT. He’s familiar with having a voice that informs, invigorates, and inspires people—creating content that usually goes viral. He recently won two awards from Fusion and the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts for his films Some Kind of Spanish and Black Latina Unapologetically. He attained a degree in Films Studies from Queens College, CUNY. He is currently raising and distributing funds for Haitians in Sosúa.
