What’s It Like Being Black in Mexico City?

[Applause] Got out in. Hey y'all, it's Desiree and Daryl from Got Out got in. And today we are talking about a hot topic, or what seems to be a hot topic on the internets, and it's being black in Mexico, specifically Mexico City.

Whenever we post online on social media, it is without fail that somebody asks us what our experience has been like being black in Mexico. Overall, I would say our experience so far has been good. It's hard to step outside of the box in terms of expectations of treatment. When you're used to living in America, you're used to institutionalized racism or just overt racism. You are conditioned to think of what would it be like if I moved to X, Y, and Z. Would there still be racism? And the truth is, I feel like unfortunately, because of the way the world works, racism is everywhere. But specifically here in Mexico, I think that it's less about racism and a little more about classism.

Now, I'm not saying that racism here is non-existent. Like, I'm sure there are some racist people here. Let's be serious, Mexico is a huge country, so there are tons of different kinds of people here from all sorts of backgrounds. So, not to say that racism does not exist here, but it's more about status and class. So, are we treated well on a day-to-day basis? Daryl, what do you think?

Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody I've interacted with is respectful, kind. I haven't heard any slurs. Uh, the interesting thing is how Americana has just traversed the world. So, I saw a guy one day walking the dog and he had on, I think I might have told you, a Confederate flag was on his t-shirt. Oh, yeah. This guy looked like a general Mexican person in terms of, you know, looked like he had indigenous blood. The way I feel is a lot of times people will get t-shirts from the States, put them on, means nothing to them specifically. And so, while I, initially, like Des saying, it's hard to step outside the context of America, initially, I was taken aback. And then I realized this guy probably has no clue. He's not well-versed in what that flag on his shirt means. He might think it represents America. He might think it represents the South as, uh, the narrative goes, as just his southern heritage, southern pride. And so he may not be thinking about it in the context that I initially thought about it. And so I say that to say that I have to understand the cultural context within which we live.

Right? Negro here. It is truly the same way that I say I'm black. Well, I'm negro here, versus if I'm in the US and somebody with an American accent calls me a negro. Well, then we got a problem outside of like my grandma, right? We have a real, a real big problem because now you have approached me disrespectfully. Here it's not the same. Like, right? Like, you know, you're trying to get my attention. There was a guy one day, man, he, um, we say, "Hey," he'd say, "Hey," to each other all the time. And then, like, I think I didn't see him and so he doesn't know my name and so he said, "Hey, negro." And I'm like, "Oh, my boy." Like, we're cool. But also, it's not within the context of, "Hey, with a hard 'er'." You have to understand that and step away from the harm that America has done to you as an individual in order to really experience a peaceful life here as a black person. I think, and I think it's also important to note that, oh, rats. I just lost my train of thought. But yes, on a day-to-day, our experiences overall have been good.

Do we get stares from people? Absolutely. Like, it is without fail that people, people do stare at us. And I mean, I think for the most part, Mexico is pretty homogeneous, meaning that most everybody kind of looks the same. So us being here, you don't think so? No. To me, most Mexicans look the same. I think most Mexicans do not look like us. But I, coming here, the number of white folks I've seen who are Mexican. Oh. But are they Mexican or are they Spaniards? That's the thing, right? It's the same way as are we Americans, right? I think that that they are Mexicans, right? They're born in Mexico. They have Mexican birth certificates, Mexican, they pay Mexican taxes, but they are of a conquistador bloodline. Got it. And so I think that, yeah, there are a lot of white Mexicans and that shocked me, right? Being here, seeing white people just rattle off Spanish the same way that an indigenous-looking Mexican would, it tripped me out because I'm like, yo, this is like Billy Bob from the country club, but he's speaking Spanish. Like, and they open their mouth just like, oh, to the. I didn't tell you this, but last time I went out to get some food recently and I saw some white folks and they, uh, they nodded and I, I said, you know, "Qué tal?" and they started speaking English. They, they, I guess knew that I was an African-American and an American specifically and tried to speak English to me, but I speak Spanish to them.

I don't know what it is about black people here or just Americans in general. I don't know if we walk funny, if we talk funny. Like, no, actually, not even talk funny because it's before we even open our mouth, people be knowing that we're American. Like, how do you know I'm not from the motherland somewhere? Like, what about me? We'll sit there and guess, is this person from Africa or they? Because it's a lot of African immigrants here and we know, like generally, we be knowing if they're African-American or if they are from the continent and it's just something about them. I don't know what it is, but it's something about them where we just know, like, oh, yeah, they definitely from the continent. We got wrong last week. We did. We did. We did. We've been tripped up a few times, but generally, we are correct. Met a brother from, uh, California. Uh, but he had locks and dark-skinned brother and so we were sitting there and I, I knew, I knew brother was from the continent and he's like, "Yo, what's up, man?" And we ended up talking. Um, but yeah, from, from Southern California, but that being said, he had a name that was West African. He was given first generation. Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely first generation brother in the in the States. But yeah, cool. Cool dude.

So I think that it's, it's very interesting like when people ask us what our experience. In my head, especially in America, black and Mexicans are very intertwined or like on the same level status. Like, like I, I understand that America has a, a huge grudge against people who come from Mexico to America illegally and vice versa. Let's, let's be real. There are a lot of Americans that come to Mexico doing the same thing. Now, let's be clear. We are not those. Nope. We pay RFC, dog. Got that RFC. We are legal immigrants. Okay, let's be clear. But to me, we're on the same level. But it's interesting where I see comments online. There's one video that we have on TikTok specifically where I had gone to an event that was mainly black people. There were a few Mexican and indigenous people there, but it was mainly black people. And it was interesting that in the comments people were saying things like, "It's interesting that they're here, but if Mexicans were doing this in America, it would be a problem." Or things of that nature, which was really confusing to me because that has not been my experience. I think that maybe because that's not been my experience, it's hard for me to understand those type of comments. But I can tell you for sure, we have never done anything in our lives to make the lives of Mexicans seeking a better life in America harder than it needs to be. Like, we have both worked in retail and been in situations where perhaps we're servicing a customer who does not speak English. I'm not going to turn that person away because they don't speak English. I'm going to do my best to try to help them. And people have done that for us here. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've, we've been in public. I remember one time specifically while we were here during our, like, exploratory trip in 2023, Daryl really wanted to see if this place had ice cream that was dairy-free for me and my son and he was trying to speak Spanish, but it wasn't really working out that well, and a lady had come up and translated for you. Do you remember that? We were in Chedraui or something like that. I don't know, but I remember it and I thought it was really special. Um, but there are so many people like that that are just willing to help on a day-to-day, and that makes things so much easier because we are also trying to learn Spanish. And so, while we are conversational to an extent, we can place an order, we can do some day-to-day things, we do not know everything. So, sometimes we really have to pull out our phones and do the Google Translate or whatever just so that we can, you know, be able to communicate properly. Because for me, and I'm sure you feel the same way, like, I'm going to go out of my way to make myself feel uncomfortable before I make a Mexican feel uncomfortable like they need to speak English to me because we are here. We are very well aware of the fact that we are visitors here, even though we have residency or whatever, but we realize like this is not our home like it is for now, but you get what I'm saying. So, we realize that the burden is on us to be able to communicate and to get our point across and ask for the things that we need or whatever.

But anyway, if you're looking to come live in Mexico, definitely go visit some different areas. And if you're looking at one city, visit some different neighborhoods for sure, just to kind of get a feel for it. Obviously, everybody's experience is going to be different, but for the most part, our experience has been pretty good. People love our son. I can't tell you how many times people have come up to him and like patted him on the head or, you know, given compliments. Context. That's culturally appropriate here. Yes. Um, it happens to all, almost all children. It's a very familial space, which I think the black community, um, used to be a lot more like, um, before we decided to like do a lot of integration and say like, this is our kid, you know, this is our family. Like, like, you know, my parents tell me and my grandparents, like it used to be like, you know, it takes a village to raise a child, really. Um, and that is still very much the case here. So they're not like petting him like you would a dog. Um, they take care of, like, everybody's children. If a kid runs out into the street, like people step out in front of them. It's not a, "Oh, that's your child, so I ain't going to." No, like, it's a very communal space. It's not a, a weird, it's not a hands-off, like, that's your business, you deal with it. But yeah, the abuelas, they love Avery. Okay. Like, they love him and his little face and, you know, they're always commenting on how cute he is and stuff like that. So we definitely feel, um, you know, welcome and the warm vibes and stuff. But also Mexico City is a very large city. So there's still like that, go vibe, like New York, but it's, it's definitely a version of it. It's definitely a sister of New York. It's a nicer New York, like as far as like, like people, like, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sympathetic is the word you would use, right? Like they're they're much more. Yeah, they, I mean, I love New York. I love New York to death. And you don't go talking to everybody in New York. You don't say hey to everybody all on the street. It's not, that's just not what you do. Versus here, it is like, you know, the garage men who like, you know, make sure the garage opens properly or the doorman, like everybody, there's not an expectation, but it's welcoming. It's welcome to say hi to everybody. M, um, especially for us that. So classism, I think that the classes, especially in Mexico City, they don't always speak to everyone. But us being black people down here, we know what it's like to be invisible in the United States of America. And so I don't ever want to make anyone else feel that way. You can visually, like, see the classes a lot of times because especially in, in the neighborhood we live in, the people, the, the everyday working-class, blue-collar people generally have blue-collar, uh, uniforms. And I don't see them getting spoken to by everyone in white-collar outfits, right? Because we live in a, a corporate area. So we have a lot of people walking to work every day and they don't always speak to the people who are sweeping the sidewalks or or doing the landscaping. And having been in a country where black people are very often overlooked, um, black people, people of brown, uh, skin, people who are working, you know, blue-collar jobs, white-collar jobs don't always speak to them. And so we're like, yo, I'm not, I'm not going to overlook you or make you feel like anything less than when you're doing honest, honest day's work. I speak to everybody. Like the guy, we walk over to school every day. It's a dude, he's sweeping the sidewalk. Every day, I say what's up to him, you know, when it's the, and like, like everybody wants to feel seen. That's the final frontier here, right? It's like, yo, let's knock down classism because like, like racism is not as big of a thing as classism here is here. People know that we live in this neighborhood. And so this is certainly a nicer neighborhood. I don't know how we live in this neighborhood sometimes, but we here. And and so I, everybody knows, like, yo, I don't care what side of town you live on. What's up, dude? You, you know, you like football? I'm trying to learn about soccer. What's up? And that's the conversation. Like, you got, you got to meet people as humans where they are and and connect with them because having traveled many different countries, thankfully now, I realize that we are all more alike than we are different. Um, and so we got to lean into that. Um, the people who are most different are those people who are in that 1% and they're only different because they don't see us as more alike. So, we got to, we got to show each other, hey, we know black, brown, uh, if you're Asian, if you're indigenous, if you're white, like we are more alike than we are different. And that's what I've received here from most people is, yo, we can talk about whatever. Like, you're trying to communicate with me, I'm going to try to communicate with you.

I had a barber yesterday, first time I got a haircut from him. The barbershop I go to, uh, most of the barbers speak English. This one didn't. And we ended up laughing toward the end because, you know, I'm trying to speak Spanish. Like, "Well, I don't speak no English, but we going to talk." And he, at the end of the convers, the first half of the cut, we weren't talking at all. And then at the end, he was like, "Oh, man. If I had known you spoke any Spanish, I would have talked to you more." But I didn't try to talk to him at first, and then he didn't try to talk to me. He thought that I just needed a translator. And turns out, man, we just, we laughed a little bit.

So, so overall, the experience has been good. I will say there was this one time that this man caught me off guard and I was walking home from dropping our son off at school. I was solo. Maybe Daryl had a meeting or something. I don't know what was going on, but I was by myself and or maybe he was out of town. I don't know. But anyway, I'm walking home, same route like I always do. And this man just comes out of nowhere and hops up on the sidewalk. I think my brain has been working to erase this memory. So, forgive me if it's not entirely like accurate. So, I'm going to do my best. So, anyway, yes, I'm walking with the stroller and stuff and then he just hops up on the sidewalk and I think the first thing that he asked me was like, "What? Why are you here?" I just stop and look at him because like, totally caught me off guard. I did not see this man coming. The first thing in my mouth is like, "Why would you speak to me like that?" because whatever he said was so far left. I was just taken aback because nobody has ever approached me like that in life. So I was like, "What is about to come out this man's mouth or whatever." And so he started talking and somewhere along in the conversation he realized that I was from America. And so I guess I gained some cool points with him and he was like, "Oh yeah, you're from America. That's so great. Why are you here?" He even went as far as that Mexican still. So why would we choose to live here? So because he's like, Mexicans still, they're not, they're not honest people. They're not good people. And I'm confused because this man looked every bit of Mexican. So I asked him, I'm like, "Sir, where are you from?" He said, "I'm Mexican." And I'm like, "Why would you be talking about your own people like that?" That's how I knew something, some screws are loose with this man. Something was not right. He was mildly disheveled. So, it made me think that perhaps, you know, he's got some personal demons that he's fighting or something in his head because there is no way I'm going to tell you like as a black person, don't come to America because black people steal. Like, why are you living here? Like, what? Black people will say that about black people, which is incredibly sad. Incredibly sad. I think there are some, going back to how white supremacy has traversed the, uh, the globe, unfortunately, or that that thought process. Yeah, there are some folks who have self-hatred problems. So, not only do they hate you as a person who's not white, they hate parts of themselves as a person who is not white. So, yeah, or their own community, oh, I'm different type stuff, maybe. So, yeah, I will never understand.

If you were wondering what living in Mexico is like as a black person, of course, everybody's experience will differ. I'm sure if you get on the Google right now, you can find people on both ends of the spectrum who feel like, you know, Mexico is not for black people or me, black people do not belong in Mexico or there's no place for them or whatever. But then you'll find people on the opposite end of the spectrum, sort of like us, who have had positive experiences overall and, um, we're enjoying life here. So, like I said, Mexico is not for everybody for sure. Definitely. Definitely. If you're thinking about living in Mexico, you want to learn the language first and foremost. You want to get them papers too, so that you're not coming here illegally. And yeah, just respect the culture, which I think is something that we are highly sensitive to. There are a lot of things about Mexican culture that I do not understand, but I also understand that it is not my place to try to fix those things. It just is what it is. To be fixed. Exactly. It's just different. It's their culture. Yes. And it, it can be a part, it can become your culture, but don't try to change stuff because then you're just that gringo that nobody wants here.

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