Hector Tobar: Striking a nerve on racism

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The time has come to fight hate speech against Latinos as we have against blacks, writes Los Angeles Times columnist Hector Tobar.

I struck a nerve two weeks ago when I suggested that all Americans, Latinos especially, owe a collective thank you to black people for their struggles for equality.

Recognizing this truth, and teaching our children that black people fighting for their own freedom helped free all of us, I argued, can help combat intolerance in communities where blacks and Latinos live side by side.

I got more than 300 messages [you can see some of the comments on that column here], mostly positive. Dozens of black people thanked me for ‘saying what someone ... in the Latino community needed to say.’

But others launched into a refrain I hear whenever I write the word ‘Latino.’

Read the rest of Tobar’s column here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City