America’s Problem of Race: The Black and Latino Man Divided by a Common African Ancestry

Abstract

What Michael Harrington prophesized in 1962 was only the manifestation of modern-day America’s problem of race. In the 1835 publication of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville accurately predicted that America’s downfall would be the problem of race. In 2014 and beyond, more than 100 years later, America’s refusal to deal with its ugly past of enslavement and genocide of peoples of color remains alive and well. New York City’s notorious employment of “stop and frisk“ and racial profiling in communities of color are symptoms of this unresolved past. While Black and Latino men are the targets of these modern forms of racism, this paper argues that Black and Latino men are one and the same. Colonialism in America treats the so-called Latino man with deference to his skin hue. Until the Latino man acknowledges his African ancestry, his survival too will be fraught with uncertainty.