I feel like #Latinos were quiet when #MiaPonsetto was trending, so allow me to bring her up to address a few things.

1) Latinos can be white, Black, Asian, and any other race imaginable because Latino is not a race but a cultural identifier. Latinos can also be mixed race.

2) Latinos can be racist bc Latinos can be white and white supremacy and anti-blackness are not exclusive to the U.S., but are global phenomena.

Latinos, like Mia Ponsetto, can be white and racist. 2/

3) Not all Latinos are people of color bc Latinos can be white. Let me to explain.

In the U.S., the term POC refers to any person who is not considered white. I just said Latinos can be white. But race, including terms like “POC,” are social constructs. 3/

While in Latin America you can be Latino and be white, in the U.S. Latinos are almost never considered white, even if they are. Latinos are automatically considered POC, even though not all white Latinos are POC, like I said earlier. 4/

To further complicate things, most Latinos are mestizos or mixed. So you can be Latino and look white, but be racially mixed. Just like you can be phenotypically white in the U.S. and be Black or racially mixed. Most Latinos are racially mixed and are indeed POC, but not all. 5/

All this to say, whiteness and Blackness are contextual bc race is a social construct. And how you identify and how you are perceived are two different things. Moreover, how you are perceived by in-group members vs out-group members doesn’t always match.

Here’s a personal example. I have African ancestry, I identify as Black, and I’m considered Black (negro/moreno) in most areas of Latin America. Here in the U.S., I’m not always perceived as Black by white people or even by Black people. My Blackness is, therefore, contextual. 6/

To bring it full circle:

You can be Latino and be white and be racist. Mia Ponsetto is all three.

She is also a perfect example of the antiblackness that exists in Latino culture. In some ways she does not represent us. In other ways, she perfectly does. We have work to do. 7/