{"id":45212,"date":"2016-01-19T21:35:11","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T21:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45212"},"modified":"2016-05-21T00:32:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T00:32:55","slug":"the-audacity-to-be-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45212","title":{"rendered":"The Audacity to be Black"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/chicagomaroon.com\/2016\/01\/18\/the-audacity-to-be-black\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Audacity to be Black<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chicagomaroon.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Chicago Maroon: The independent student newspaper of The University of Chicago since 1892.<\/a><br \/>\n2016-01-18<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iamsubversive\" target=\"_blank\">Vincente Perez<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The word African American masks the political strife and oppression that comes with the word Black.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201cBlack is hurt.<br \/>\nBlack is pain.<br \/>\nBlack is strong.<br \/>\nBlack is Love<br \/>\nWorked hard and long<br \/>\nBlack is deserving<br \/>\nBlack is unnerving<br \/>\nBecause it is so Goddamn powerful<br \/>\nNo matter what side of Blackness you represent<br \/>\nRemember<br \/>\nAlways<br \/>\nBlack is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2014excerpted from <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blurb.com\/b\/6568270-b-lack-ness-latini-dad\" target=\"_blank\">B(lack)NESS &amp; LATINI(dad)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I remember the first time I was teased for being Black. I was trying to fit in with the kids\u2014all Mexican\u2014so I wore my hair gelled down, but no amount of mousse or gel could hide my nappy curls. It was my turn to get roasted. They threw out the word Mayate (a slur for Black people) and laughed at how much product my hair required. I wasn\u2019t \u201creally\u201d Mexican like they were. My father was Black and my mother Mexican, so I was something caught in between. \u201cMayate.\u201d The word rang in my ears. For some reason, it hurt just like n***er did, but more than that, it threw me into a state of alienation. This word was flung at me from a language that shouldn\u2019t be foreign to me, but is.<\/p>\n<p>So where did I fit in? African American didn\u2019t feel right. My <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mestizo\" target=\"_blank\">mestizo<\/a> family migrated to the U.S. in the 20th century and my mother didn\u2019t meet my father until the 1990s. I\u2019d never felt American. So what was I then? My mom told me: \u201cYou\u2019re Black. There\u2019s no need to be ashamed of it, it just is what it is.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/chicagomaroon.com\/2016\/01\/18\/the-audacity-to-be-black\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Audacity to be Black The Chicago Maroon: The independent student newspaper of The University of Chicago since 1892. 2016-01-18 Vincente Perez The word African American masks the political strife and oppression that comes with the word Black. \u201cBlack is hurt. Black is pain. Black is strong. Black is Love Worked hard and long Black [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,14646,8,20],"tags":[22693,22692,22694],"class_list":["post-45212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-chicago-maroon","tag-the-chicago-maroon","tag-vincente-perez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45213,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45212\/revisions\/45213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}