Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The browning of Black politics: Foundational Blackness and new Latino subjectivities

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Subjectivity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article examines the historic and contemporary circumstances that have produced recent fusions between US-American Black and Latino subjectivities in Houston, Texas. It analyzes expressive culture, ethnographic data, popular media and theories about racial power to argue that memories of anti-Black racism and Black anti-racism strongly influence Latino modes of counter-hegemony and complicate the ways in which Black and Latino histories and subjectivities are analyzed. Houston's unique location and history have created a condition through which Blacks and Latinos have shared a uniquely common experience as targets for state-sanctioned racial violence. That shared struggle has produced a wariness of race that bonds the two groups together. Blackness has served as the primary adhesive in that bond because of what I argue to be its function as a universal signifier of opposition to white supremacy from which Latinos draw strength.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). (2002). Como de dice Rodney King en Español? Posters promote reform, commemorate Texas victim of police brutality. http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/%C2%BFcomo-se-dice-rodney-king-en-espan, accessed 1 February 2011.

  • Associated Press. (2006) Black-Hispanic gang rivalries plague Los Angeles. 12 August.

  • Associated Press. (2007) Feds take on Latino Gang accused of targeting blacks. 31 December.

  • Blackman, L., Cromby, J., Hook, D., Papdopoulos, D. and Walkerdine, V. (2008) Creating subjectivities. Subjectivity 22: 1–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown Pride Forum. (2008). http://boards.brownpride.com/showthread.php/do-feel-mayateros-72372.html, accessed 3 January 2008.

  • Bullard, R.D. (1987) Invisible Houston: The Black Experience in Boom and Bust. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cambell, H. (2009) Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juãrez. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castañeda, R. (1989) L.A. job fight – A bitter struggle or an alliance. California Tomorrow 4 (1): 7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chingo Bling. (2007) Can’t Deport Us All, Asylum Records.

  • Cook, M. (2002) Quanell X leads rally on steps of Baytown PD. Baytown Sun, 11 March: A1.

  • Crowe, R. (2002) Torres aftermath leaves deep wounds in Baytown group wants to re-open probe; police say justice served. Houston Chronicle, 13 June: A-2.

  • Davila, A. (2008) Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Léon, A. (2001) Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican Americans in Houston. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubois, W.E.B. (1903) The Souls of Black Folk. Boston, MA: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ericksen, C. (1980) Brown and black: Collision or coalition? Nuestro 4 (6): 17–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Espiritu, Y. (1999) Disciplines unbound: Notes on sociology and ethnic studies. Contemporary Sociology 28 (5): 510–514.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fanon, F. (1967) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira da Silva, D. (2001) Towards a critique of the socio-logus of justice: The analytics of raciality and the production of university. Social Identities 7 (3): 421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foley, N. (1999) The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites Texas Cotton Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1976) The Hisory of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (2003) Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. New York: Picador.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gonzales-Day, K. (2006) Lynching in the West. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, A. (1999) Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, S. (1999) Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutierrez, R.A. (1994) Ethnic studies: Its evolution in American colleges and universities. In: D.T. Goldberg (ed.) Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader. London: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, M. (2010) Militant Life. New Left Review II (64): 151–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez, T. (2007) Roots of anger: Longtime prejudices, not economic rivalry, fuel Latino-black tensions. Los Angeles Times, 7 January. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/07/opinion/op-hernandez7, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • Hesse, B. (2007) Racialized modernity: An analytics of white mythologies. Racial and Ethnic Studies 30 (4): 643–663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holland, S. (2002) Raising the Dead. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horsman, R. (1983) Race and Manifest Destiny. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutchinson, E.O. (2006) Discrimination, not illegal immigration, fuels black job crisis. New America Media, 24 April. http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=620a7a4dc8b8f2319c0f74fa1f746a0c, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • Hyde, S. (ed.) (2003) Sunbelt Revolution: The Historical Progression of the Civil Rights Struggle in the Gulf South, 1866–2000. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iton, R. (2008) In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post Civil Rights Era. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • James, J. (ed.) (2003) States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons. New York: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, R. (2003) Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J.Y. (1999) Are Asians black? The Asian American civil rights agenda and the contemporary significance of the black/white paradigm. Yale Law Journal 108: 2385–2412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kweli, T. (2010) Papers please, http://www.yearoftheblacksmith.com/-profiles/blogs/new-music-talib-kweli-papers-1, accessed 24 May 2010.

  • Low-G and Rasheed. (2002) WetBlack, Shut Em Down Records.

  • Madison, D.S. (2005) Critical ethnography as street performance: Reflections of home, race, murder and justice. In: N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Boston, MA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mariscal, G. (2005) Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement: 1965–1975. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mbembe, A. (2003) Necropolitics. Public Culture 15 (1): 11–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClain, P.D. (1993) The changing dynamics of urban politics: Black and Hispanic municipal employment – Is there competition? Journal of Politics 55 (2): 399–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mignolo, W. (2000) Local Histories/Global Designs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mindiola Jr, T., Niemann, Y.F. and Rodriguez, N. (2002) Black-Brown Relations and Stereotypes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, R. (2007) A little known fact: Houston is the blues capital. Houston Chronicle, 28 September. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline-/entertainment/5172065.html, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • National Lawyers Guild, Anthony Baez Foundation, October 22nd Coalition. (1999) Stolen Lives: Killed by Law Enforcement. New York: October 22nd Coalition.

  • Nova Lomax, J. (2003) Hip-hop, Tejas: Latinos take on rap music and make it their own. Houston Press, 4 December. http://www.houstonpress.com/2003-12-04/music/hip-hop-tejas/, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • Oliver, M.L. and Johnson Jr, J.H. (1984) Inter-ethnic conflict in an urban ghetto: The case of blacks and Latina/os in Los Angeles. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, Coalitions, and Change 6: 57–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pew Center for Hispanic Research. (2006) A Statistical Portrait of Hispanics at Mid-Decade. http://pewhispanic.org/reports/middecade/, accessed 1 February 2011.

  • Piatt, B. (1998) Origins of black/brown conflict. In: R. Delgado and J. Stefancic (eds.) The Latina/o Condition: A Critical Reader. New York: New York University Press, pp. 457–465.

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston, J. (2008) In big shift, Latino vote was heavily for Obama. New York Times, 6 November. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07-latino.html, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • Raper, A. (1936) Preface to Peasantry: A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, L. Cuadros, P. Tate, A. Yzaguirre, R. (2004) Strength in numbers: in pursuit of opportunities and justice, should the Black and Latino communities join forces or go at it alone? The Crisis Magazine. January/February.

  • Rodriguez, R. (2010) Low-G: From ESL mockery to historic Spanish hip-hop. Houston Press, 27 January. http://blogs.houstonpress.com-/rocks/2010/01/lowg_from_esl_mockery_to_hist.php?page=1, accessed 23 May 2010.

  • San Miguel, G. (2005) Brown Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott-Heron, G.S. (1978) The Mind of Gil Scot Scott-Heron. Arista.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slater, D. (2004) Geo-Politics and the Post-Colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations. London: Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Swarns, R. (2006) Growing unease for some blacks in immigration. New York Times, 4 May. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/us/04immig.html?-ref=rachel_l_swarns, accessed 15 August 2010.

  • Tate, G. (2003) Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. New York: Broadway Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaca, N. (2004) The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What it Means for America. New York: Rayo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westof, B. (2008) Not your father's N-word. Houston Press, 1 April. http://www.houstonpress.com/content/printVersion/758324, accessed 20 May 2010.

  • Wood, R. (2006) Texas Zydeco. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of African American Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    John D Márquez

Authors
  1. John D Márquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Márquez, J. The browning of Black politics: Foundational Blackness and new Latino subjectivities. Subjectivity 4, 47–67 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2010.30

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2010.30

Keywords

Search

Navigation