Activist Calls for Unity, Acceptance Within Afro-Latino Community
/Roland Roebuck, activist and advisor of the Afro-Latino
Student Association at Howard University, lamented the rigid attitudes
of African-Americans toward their ethnic and racial backgrounds at a
speech for Hispanic Heritage Month on Wednesday. Roebuck focused his
lecture in White Gravenor on the topic of Afro-Latinos living in
Hispanic communities and said that denial is the negative consequence
of interracial social interactions. "Many people are not comfortable
with their black identity and use their geographical identification to
feel comfortable," he said. Discrimination against the African minority
encouraged the notion of racial inferiority and the pressure to
assimilate discouraged individuals from celebrating their identity, he
said. "In Puerto Rico alone, 89 percent of the population identified
itself as white. This means that my cousins are calling themselves
white and yet they are not calling themselves Afro-Puerto Rican." [more 
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