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Unverified Legion of Trill member
Ponsetto could’ve had a Black boyfriend, cousin, best friend or long-lost great-great-great grandmother and still be racist’
In her contentious interview with CBS News anchor Gayle King, Miya Ponsetto, 22, insisted that she, a Puerto Rican of mixed ethnicities, was not capable of being racist. The interview followed her attack on Keyon Harrold Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy she falsely accused of cellphone theft in a New York hotel lobby.
Read More: ‘SoHo Karen’ Miya Ponsetto charged, released from custody
This moment with Soho Karen, as she is now called by the internet, took me back to a time when I was about 12 years old — the time I learned blood is not always thicker than race.
It was a typical family squabble, something minor but blown out of proportion due to miscommunication.
One family member who is Latino and non-Black (Puerto Rican specifically), called another one of my family members, who is Black, the N-word.
(Photo: Courtesy of Natasha S. Alford)
Apparently, it wasn’t in the typical way it’s used around many mixed communities, where groups casually sling phrases like “n**ga” back and forth.
“How did they know to use that word?” I thought, as my Black family member explained what happened. “Why did they have to use that word?”
I was horrified knowing despite my family’s bond by marriage with me as the link, nothing would ever truly be the same.
Many acts of love, birthday parties, Christmas gifts and home-cooked meals provided by this slur-throwing family member now felt stained by racism. I was darker than my Latino cousins due to my African American heritage on my father’s side: Did they see me the same way?
As a multicultural family, we may have all been “minorities” in America, discriminated against and denied opportunities for varying reasons. But when the lines were drawn, it’s sad how easily anti-Black racism became the weapon of choice.
(Photo: Public Domain)
This ugly and uncomfortable truth comes to mind when watching Miya Ponsetto. By all accounts, Ponsetto was not only insufferable and disrespectful to King throughout the interview, she issued a denial common amongst unaware people of color:
Ponsetto: “I wasn’t racial profiling whatsoever. I’m Puerto Rican, I’m, like, a woman of color. I’m Italian, Greek, Puerto Rican.
King: “You keep saying you’re Puerto Rican. Does that mean you can’t be racist because you’re a woman of color?”
Ponsetto: “Exactly.”
King: “Well, I would disagree with that.”
Ponsetto believed her identity as a “woman of color” of Puerto Rican heritage protected her from criminalizing a Black boy — who also happens to be Puerto Rican — in a hotel lobby altercation that could have gotten him killed.
Despite the popular “Butter pecan Puerto Rican” saying, being Puerto Rican is not a race. There are white Puerto Ricans with blue eyes and blonde hair, Black Puerto Ricans with 4c afros and chocolate brown skin, and every shade in between.
But let’s be clear — Ponsetto could’ve had a Black boyfriend, cousin, best friend or long-lost great-great-great grandmother and still be racist.
In her contentious interview with CBS News anchor Gayle King, Miya Ponsetto, 22, insisted that she, a Puerto Rican of mixed ethnicities, was not capable of being racist. The interview followed her attack on Keyon Harrold Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy she falsely accused of cellphone theft in a New York hotel lobby.
Read More: ‘SoHo Karen’ Miya Ponsetto charged, released from custody
This moment with Soho Karen, as she is now called by the internet, took me back to a time when I was about 12 years old — the time I learned blood is not always thicker than race.
It was a typical family squabble, something minor but blown out of proportion due to miscommunication.
One family member who is Latino and non-Black (Puerto Rican specifically), called another one of my family members, who is Black, the N-word.
(Photo: Courtesy of Natasha S. Alford)
Apparently, it wasn’t in the typical way it’s used around many mixed communities, where groups casually sling phrases like “n**ga” back and forth.
“How did they know to use that word?” I thought, as my Black family member explained what happened. “Why did they have to use that word?”
I was horrified knowing despite my family’s bond by marriage with me as the link, nothing would ever truly be the same.
Many acts of love, birthday parties, Christmas gifts and home-cooked meals provided by this slur-throwing family member now felt stained by racism. I was darker than my Latino cousins due to my African American heritage on my father’s side: Did they see me the same way?
As a multicultural family, we may have all been “minorities” in America, discriminated against and denied opportunities for varying reasons. But when the lines were drawn, it’s sad how easily anti-Black racism became the weapon of choice.
(Photo: Public Domain)
This ugly and uncomfortable truth comes to mind when watching Miya Ponsetto. By all accounts, Ponsetto was not only insufferable and disrespectful to King throughout the interview, she issued a denial common amongst unaware people of color:
Ponsetto: “I wasn’t racial profiling whatsoever. I’m Puerto Rican, I’m, like, a woman of color. I’m Italian, Greek, Puerto Rican.
King: “You keep saying you’re Puerto Rican. Does that mean you can’t be racist because you’re a woman of color?”
Ponsetto: “Exactly.”
King: “Well, I would disagree with that.”
Ponsetto believed her identity as a “woman of color” of Puerto Rican heritage protected her from criminalizing a Black boy — who also happens to be Puerto Rican — in a hotel lobby altercation that could have gotten him killed.
Despite the popular “Butter pecan Puerto Rican” saying, being Puerto Rican is not a race. There are white Puerto Ricans with blue eyes and blonde hair, Black Puerto Ricans with 4c afros and chocolate brown skin, and every shade in between.
But let’s be clear — Ponsetto could’ve had a Black boyfriend, cousin, best friend or long-lost great-great-great grandmother and still be racist.