Unity

Next week, I will be speaking at a Hispanic Leadership Summit at the United Nations. I was asked to speak on the topic of Unity. The following is a preview of my speech.

 

In 1966, Ronald Reagan made a statement that became known as the “11^th commandment” in Republican politics: He said, “Thou shall not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans.”  Republicans loved it, and most would argue that it has served Republicans well over the years.

 

Fast Forward to 2020; Joe Biden had just won the presidential election. In an interview on MSNBC, Eva Longoria credited Latinas for carrying the election for Joe Biden. For making that claim, Longoria took a beating on social media. Why? Because the narrative at that point was that it was Black people, particularly Black women, who deserved the credit for Biden’s victory. And by giving credit to Latinas, many believed that Longoria showed disrespect to Black women.

 

Most of the criticism came from people on the left, including a good number of Latinos who willingly jumped on that bandwagon. A few days later, Eva was essentially forced to go back on TV to grovel and apologize.

 

Later that month, I wrote a blog post inspired by Reagan’s statement. It was titled “Thou Shall Not Publicly Criticize Other Latinos” and published in Hispanic Executive Magazine.

 

In my blog, I mentioned the Longoria story and made my case for defending our own. While some people liked my article, I also received a fair share of criticism. Again, I received a lot of self-righteous comments from Latinos on the left. “What a stupid statement!” “Are you saying Latinos are infallible?” “If a Latino is out of line, I am going to call them out just like anyone else!”

 

Two months ago, and we’re all familiar with this story, Donald Trump hosted a rally in NYC and had a comedian open for him.  As we all know, the comedian called Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage.

 

A few organizations, including NAHREP, posted statements denouncing the comedian’s comments on social media. We got positive remarks thanking us for making the statement. Still, there were also a good number of Latinos, this time from the right, who criticized NAHREP’s statement, making comments such as, “It was only a joke.”, “That’s our problem, we can’t take a joke.” or, “You’re trying to connect this to Donald Trump. How dare you… “Make America Great Again.” We received tons of comments like that.

 

Let me ask you this question, and I want you to think about it: Instead of a Donald Trump rally, let’s say it was a Kamala Harris rally. Instead of calling Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage, let’s say a comedian opened for her and said that Israel was a pile of garbage.

 

Do you think the reaction would have been the same? Do you believe there would have been a division between conservative and liberal Jewish people about whether the joke was appropriate at a political rally? Just ask yourself that question.

 

You probably know where I am going with this, but let me give you one big example of why the narrative about Latinos matters.

 

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of participating in raising $100M for L’ATTITUDE Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests exclusively in Latino-led companies and start-ups. I saw firsthand what these people think about Latinos from a business standpoint.

 

Through that process, I learned that roughly 70 trillion dollars of investment capital are floating around the globe and that a relatively small number control it. These people are under pressure to make good investments – that will give them a good return. So, again, ask yourselves why they want to invest their capital in people or a community filled with problems.

 

Remember, we weren’t asking these companies to sponsor our event or to purchase a table at our gala; we were asking for $10 million in investment capital, and that’s a whole different ballgame.

 

If the narrative that these capital allocators hear about Latinos in the media, in movies, or from politicians is that we are a community filled with problems: financial problems, immigration problems, or problems with the law, it shouldn’t be surprising that accessing capital has been next to impossible for us – across all sectors. Perception has an impact, trust me.

 

Conversely, communities with a positive narrative can achieve success at astonishing levels. Indians from India are about 1% of the U.S. population. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Twitter, and PepsiCo have Indian CEOs. Is that a coincidence? Is it possible that Indians are just better at running big companies, and there are literally no Hispanics capable of the same thing?

 

I don’t think so. What is more likely is that a narrative about Indians being good business leaders permeated boardrooms across America.

 

I’m not taking anything away from those individuals; they are doing a great job, but come on …Latinos are great, too.

 

Here is the bottom line, and here is the harsh truth:

 

We can organize events such as this one, or NAHREP or AVANCE Global events;

 

We can talk about the data, point to the Latino GDP, and tout our purchasing power,

 

But it won’t make a particle bit of difference.

 

It’s like saying people with brown hair have a GDP of 10 trillion dollars. Who cares? If that group can’t be mobilized or doesn’t rally around at least a few key issues that they hold sacred – as a group, none of it matters.

 

If we don’t support each other…if we don’t have each other’s back, if we don’t protect the Latino brand – like Jewish and Indian people do,  events like these are meaningless, and those big GDP numbers are also meaningless.

 

I’m tired of hearing how Latinos aren’t a monolith. I know we’re not a monolith; we have never been. That’s not news. The news will be when we start acting like a community.

 

You know how they call us the sleeping giant? What do you think that means? Other people call us a sleeping giant because we haven’t yet realized how powerful we could be if we stuck together and became unified. We are “sleeping” because we haven’t realized how powerful we can be; that is literally what it means.

 

I don’t have a Republican or Democratic agenda; I have a Latino agenda. I stand for the Latino brand. I pray that we, as leaders, can all start sharing that message with those in our circle of influence, to those who look to us for leadership.

 

If you have the chance to support one of our businesses – do it.

If you have the opportunity to donate to one of our campaigns – do it.

And, if anyone speaks ill of us or portrays Latinos in a negative light – no matter who it is or what party they are from – call them out and let it be known that we won’t stand for it.

 

Unity is everything; believe me, nothing else we do as leaders is more important than promoting unity. Nothing! Thank you!