Are those of us outside of Latin culture simply misunderstanding the ways in which language isn’t always literal (i.e. The story of slavery, then, is primarily a Latin American one, rather than a U.S. one. Actress and singer Jennifer Lopez finds herself in the middle of an online controversy following the release of "Lonely" with Colombian singer Maluma.. Lloréns: It is true that the use of “negrita/negrito” to refer lovingly or kindly to one another is widespread among Latinxs, regardless of race or physical appearance. !function(t,e,r){var n,s=t.getElementsByTagName(e)[0],i=/^http:/.test(t.location)? Given the huge imprint that slavery made across Las Americas, the racial pathologies that formed still exist today. That it can be used to describe someone who is the most tanned in a group or family, someone with the darkest hair or eyes, or someone with dark skin who would be seen as Black. Our San Diego Econometer panel considers a question asked of many Californians. What was the term rooted in? Lloréns: I think this latest criticism of Lopez is warranted. If this were untrue, ask yourself: Why are there so few dark-skin Black Latinas actresses and singers succeeding in both the Latinx global media industry and in Hollywood? In other words, anti-Black racism exists and is alive and well, throughout Latin America. Amara is affirming her direct association with Blackness, while Lopez is seemingly using it as a sword to ward off any accusations of exercising her light skin privilege. Lopez’s tactic is what I call the “I can’t be racist, I’m Latino” defense to racial reckoning. From the Archives: Mission Valley stadium construction began with a bang in 1965. Rather than acknowledge the legacies of slavery and continued racism, Latin American countries deflected with the premise that widespread racial mixture made racial categorization too imprecise for true racism to exist. Though there is still much work to be done to end anti-Black racism in Latin America and among Latinxs in the U.S., since at least the 1960s the identity category “Negro/Negra” has been undergoing a reclamation process, and today it is used by many Black-Latinxs and Afro-Latinx individuals throughout the hemisphere with pride. Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx [Coro: Maluma & Jennifer Lopez] Te necesito, estoy lonely (Yeah) Si la cagué, baby, I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Tú ere' mi shorty, nadie es igual (Ay) What was your reaction to her use of this term? And so, the roughest equivalent translation to the U.S. context would be when a Black man is called “boy,” or when a Black woman is called “girl.” Negrita/negrito is a linguistic move that infantilizes, that aims to make a person small as a way to render them less threatening, less powerful, thereby, allowing the speaker to produce a friendly and child-like individual. Because White Europeans were often outnumbered, the threat of Blackness was managed in several ways. Recently, Black-Latinxs have been vocal about the ways in which, as a descriptive category, Latinidad perpetuates the erasure and the marginalization of Black-Latinx individuals. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. In the lyrics for the song, which JLo sings with Maluma, Lopez sings “yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx” (I’ll always be your Black girl from the Bronx). Colorism has a great deal to do with the reason why Amara La Negra, a dark-skin Black Latina, finds herself relegated to a “niche” market, whereas J.Lo has managed crossover mainstream success. WHY SHE WAS CRITICIZED. Q: Others have offered that the way race is understood in Latin America is different from how Americans have come to understand and define it. That, specifically in regard to Puerto Rico (Lopez is of Puerto Rican descent), people understand and are proud of the mixture of African, Indigenous and European in their ancestry. This meaning still circulates, even when free Black populations were accounted for a larger segment of the population than the enslaved did. It is often claimed that the tone of voice of the person speaking it reveals the intention of usage, but just because something is widespread doesn’t make it acceptable. Lopez was born into a family of Puerto Rican descent. “Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx,” says the new song by JLo featuring Maluma, which translated into English would go something like “I will always be your little black girl from The Bronx.” For those who naturally navigate both languages, the translation makes as much noise as trying to make sense of the original phrase. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx [Maluma & Jennifer Lopez] Te necesito, estoy lonely (Yeah) Si la cagué, baby, I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Tú ere' mi shorty, nadie es igual (Ay) Deja el ego, que te va a matar You're sayin' that you're feelin' lonely But you fucked up, baby, I'm sorry (Sorry) I'm doing so much better without you (Without you) Q: In the back-and-forth over this particular topic online, some members of the Latinx community explain that “negrito/a” is a term of endearment that has little or nothing to do with race. At no other time has Lopez personally identified herself with Blackness. The term “negrita” or “negrito” is the diminutive form of “Negra/Negro” (Black). No obstante a algunos no les pareció que la artista se refiriera a sí misma como “negrita”, ya que ella no es considera una mujer negra, por lo que expresaron su descontento en redes sociales. Popularity of accessory dwelling units, or “granny flats,” has increased as regulations are streamlined, fees reduced. 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Te necesito, estoy lonely Si la cagué, baby, I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Tú eres mi shorty, nadie es igual Deja el ego, que te va a matar While there has certainly been a longstanding rhetoric about racial mixture in the region, Whiteness is the preferred currency. //]]>, Sorry, we have to make sure you're a human before we can show you this page. Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx [Maluma & Jennifer Lopez] Te necesito, estoy lonely (Yeah) Si la cagué, baby, I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Tú ere' mi shorty, nadie es igual (Ay) Deja el ego, que te va a matar. Hilda Lloréns: When I first watched the song’s video and heard J.Lo sing “yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx,” I was immediately struck by its staggering tone deafness. You're sayin' that you're feelin' lonely. Q: What is the difference between someone like Amara La Negra (a dark-skinned musician of Dominican descent) using the term, versus Lopez’s use of it? Yet, that affection does not in any way mitigate how it is racially problematic. But you fucked up, baby, I'm sorry (Sorry) Hold up JLO just said yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx. Your Say: Grading Gavin Newsom’s handling of the pandemic. She’s also the author of numerous books, including “On Latino Anti-Black Bias: ‘Racial Innocence’ and The Struggle for Equality.” Hilda Lloréns is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Rhode Island, where her research focuses on the Hispanic Caribbean and on Latinx United States, and has been published widely in academic journals and in the press. On the other hand, if J.Lo has Black ancestry, it is not apparent in her typically Latinx appearance, and more importantly, Black-Latinxs find her use of this descriptor offensive. "http":"https";t.getElementById(r)||(n=t.createElement(e),n.id=r,n.src=i+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js",s.parentNode.insertBefore(n,s))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); In other words, anti-Blackness is not a more pleasurable experience in Latin America just because the paternalistic phrase “my little Black” is thrown around as if it were a defense shield against being racially accountable. Have you used or do you plan to use California’s coronavirus contact tracing app for smartphones? Q: Do you think this latest criticism of Lopez on this topic is unwarranted? Why why why she wants to be canceled — BDP (@soybperez) September 25, 2020 . The census ruling could leave the issue to Biden. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. The term has its origins in the colonial slave societies of Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, the source of many of today’s popular music and dance traditions, such as Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Reggeaton were invented and generated by Black-Latinxs. And so, if she referred to herself using this diminutive it would be acceptable, though infantilizing. Obviously, that lyric is causing loads of controversy and fans and critics alike are letting Lopez know they’re out OK with it. Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx. Dating Black people does not make you Black. Not only is identifying as a “negrita” an insensitive move in the #LasVidasNegrasImportan (the Spanish counterpart to #BlackLivesMatter) era, but in the music video, as if to add insult to injury, she does so from a jail cell. Hold up JLO just said yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx. Certainly, those are her choices to make, but it should then not be a surprise that her sudden gesture toward Blackness, from her perch of White privilege, would be received poorly by me and many others. So when the netizens were done translating, many of them were offended because the singer is not Black. The fifth verse of the song is - 'La soledad, te juro, está que me mata / Hasta mi perro te extraña, no seas ingrato / Nada tiene sentido si no estás tú / Antes no tomaba y ya me muero en alcohol / Recuerdo en el 'rrari como hacíamo' el amor/ Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx'. Are there good or bad times ahead financially? The lyrics of the song say, “Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx,” which directly translates to “I will always be your Black girl from The Bronx.” In the song, JLo sings, “Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx,” which the literal translation is, “I’ll always be your Black girl from the Bronx.” As you can imagine, Jennifer Lopez referring to herself as a ‘Black girl’ would receive backlash from a lot of people including within the Latin community. In the context of Latin America and the Spanish speaking-Caribbean, “negrita” and “negrito” were historically used to take the sting out of addressing someone, particularly a well-liked individual, as “Negro” or “Negra.” Even today, “Negro/Negra” is understood by some as a negative or derogatory term. You're sayin' that you're feelin' lonely. This is, in part, because “Negro” was, and still is, closely associated with enslavement. In all instances, Black people in the American Hemisphere and beyond, are asking for an end to anti-Black racism, police brutality, environmental injustice, and for their human right to healthy food, education, health, affordable housing and employment. “Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx”, dice JLo en la canción. In the song, Lopez sings, “yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx” (I’ll always be your Black girl from the Bronx). If J.Lo is the non-racist person she purports to be, then she will heed this demand. In many places throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, it is believed that to be called “Negro/Negra” is to be called a slave. Pinterest. But you fucked up, baby, I'm sorry (Sorry) Lloréns: Amara La Negra can refer to herself as a “negrita” because she is Black. Not counting people in the U.S. illegally would hurt California, costing it power and federal funds. Why or why not? Te necesito, estoy lonely Si la cagué, baby, I'm sorry (I'm sorry) Tú eres mi shorty, nadie es igual Deja el ego, que te va a matar Te necesito, estoy lonely Si la cagué, baby, I’m sorry Tú ere’ mi shorty, nadie es igual Deja el ego, que te va a matar. For instance, if J.Lo or her production team would have registered that Black, Afro-Latinxs, Latinxs and Indigenous populations are over-represented in the U.S. prison population, she could have, if nothing else, worn a #BlackLivesMatter or #LasVidasNegrasImportan statement outfit in the video. In the lyrics of the song, J. 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I am not surprised at this latest lapse because, time and again, J.Lo has reminded us that she seems to have lost touch with the social, cultural and political realities facing minoritized people in the Bronx and other barrios throughout the United States, and in the Americas more broadly. Essentially, if you are not Black then it is equivalent to identity appropriation, even when used in the Spanish-speaking context, and particularly because light skin Latinxs have a history of calling themselves “negritos” all the while practicing anti-Black racism. Hernández: The criticism is entirely warranted because Black people across the globe share similar experiences of exclusion and bias. As it currently stands, Latinidad is experienced as a category that excludes Black Latinxs, and so when Latinidad is invoked or imagined, a person like J.Lo or Ricky Martin comes readily to mind, whereas Jharrel Jerome and Joan Smalls do not. Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx. Tanya K. Hernández: When I learned of the line from the song, it angered me a great deal because it felt like a tone-deaf, opportunistic attempt to appear relevant in our #BlackLivesMatter social moment. Te necesito, estoy lonely (Yeah) Si la cagué, baby, I’m sorry (I’m sorry) Tú ere’ mi shorty, nadie es igual (Ay) Deja el ego, que te va a matar You’re sayin’ that you’re feelin’ lonely But you fucked up, baby, I’m sorry (Sorry) I’m doing so much better without you (Without you) Jennifer Lopez is being slammed for referring to herself as a “Black girl from the Bronx.” In her new song with Colombian singer Maluma “Lonely,” JLo sings the Spanish lyrics “Yo siempre sere tu Negrita del Bronx.” [CDATA[ ). Follow @genius on Twitter for updates In the song, Lopez sings "yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx," which directly translates to "I will always be your black girl from the Bronx." Hilda Lloréns: When I first watched the song’s video and heard J.Lo sing “yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx,” I was immediately struck by its staggering tone deafness. One of the management tools was the use of a rhetoric of socially acceptable “little” Black, as in “my little Black, is one of the good ones.” The diminutive infantilizes Blackness, and conditions social acceptance with the imposition of a hierarchical paternalism. Lo sings, "Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx," and Twitter was quick to take notice. “The track’s lyrics have been deemed controversial as negrita is a questionable Spanish language term of endearment often used to describe people who aren’t Black,” Lola Méndez wrote in a piece for Remezcla, a media company with content targeting Latino millennials. 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That’s when the social media storm began, with dissections of language and culture, literal versus figurative translations, personal intent and history, and evolutions in the ways that words are used and what they can mean over time. J.Lo sang on the music, “Yo siempre sere tu negrita del Bronx,” which translated into, “I’ll at all times be your black lady from the Bronx.” Once folks, particularly the Black neighborhood, discovered of the interpretation, they rapidly took to social media to blast the actress and singer as a result of she is way from being black. American slang that used “bad” to mean “good”)? Hernández: There is an entire history of difference between how someone like Amara La Negra uses the term, versus Lopez’s use of it. Follow @genius //