Revolution begins within us: Opening Remarks for “Absolutmante Negro" Harlem Event

6/13/24 - Harlem, NYC

Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to remember the ancestors on whose shoulders we stand. For me, ancestors like Miriam Jiménez Roman, Juan Flores, and my father, Floresmiro Perea Renteria. These are just a few of the many people who have paved the way for us, and we are eternally grateful for their encouragement and leadership. Who are those ancestors for you, I ask you to take a moment and think about them.

Thank you.

Throughout this year, we, the afrolatin@ forum, have partnered with the Creative Justice Initiative for a powerful series, "Absolutamente Negro." These important conversations explored AfroLatinidad and the issues affecting our community in the ongoing fight for Black liberation. We have had conversations in five different cities, in addition to online events, nine events in total.

We have learned so much: the necessity of education, justice-driven laws, the importance of reproductive justice for our community, and student activism for change, the importance of Queer liberation for all of our LGBTQIA+ siblings. We have delved into the enduring significance of race and ethnicity, particularly within our Latine communities.

We have been to six states and to Borikén and we have learned a lot. So why are we here? What brings us to Harlem, to the house that Arturo Alfonso Schomburg built? Why now?

In a talk delivered at Harvard University for Black History Month in 1982, which became codified as “Learning from the 60’s” in Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde noted that “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives”

She continues: “each one of us here is a link in the connection between antipoor legislation, gay shootings, the burning of synagogues, street harassment, attacks against women, and resurgent violence against women”

And to echo her words we are here because of many of these same issues but also others, we are here with Gaza on our mind, hoping that a ceasefire will allow Palestinian liberation to begin; we come thinking about our AfroLatine siblings in Haiti, who due to Western neo-colonialism and continued imperialism struggle to be the free Black nation that Jean-Jacques Dessalines established Haiti to be.

We are here thinking of the violence in Sudan and Congo, which continue to go under reported in the media. Along with the continued oppression suffered by our siblings in Tigray.

We are here because we have seen how promises to diversity are being undercut by the same institutions that promised them. We continue to see the devaluing of Black studies, ethnic studies, the vilification of critical race theory. We are here knowing that these continued attacks on reproductive Justice affects our women the most and we are here knowing that as the rapper yasiin bey, who went by Mos Deft then, has said “the length of Black life is treated with short worth”

This event brings together many of the realities that we face as people of African descent, as Afro-Latines.

But like Audre Lorde said in that same speech “As Black people… we must move against not only those forces which dehumanize us from the outside, but also against those oppressive values which we have been forced to take into ourselves.”

And so we engage in this final conversation, a conversation that is supposed to look at what is happening around us, all of these issues that we as Black people have known since birth, but a conversation that we hope will yield strength and beauty and inner resistance. We have to engage in these conversations so we change the narratives of Latinidad, the narratives around Blackness and to continue to remember that the revolution doesn't only happen around us but must begin within us and among us, together. If we understand this then we can understand that none of us are free until we are all free. Lorde said in that speech, we are not responsible for our oppression but we are responsible for our liberation. “It is not going to be easy, but we have what we have learned and what we have been given that is useful.  We have the power those who came before us have given us, to move beyond the place where they were standing.  We have the trees, and water, and sun, and our children.”

So today I ask you to keep an open mind, an inquisitive critical mind, and listen, learn, ask questions, be empowered and leave here ready to act. Ready to bring about Black liberation in our nation and our city but also in our homes, and most importantly inside ourselves.

Because conversations like this encourage us, empower us and push us to bring forth an AfroFuture where we can all say “we gon’ be alright.”