By: Teresa Vazquez, SAF Staff Member & Alum
"Hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So please, we need to be different. If we fight we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them. We love our people. We love our family, and that’s the way to do it: With love. Don’t forget that, please. Thank you." - Bad Bunny
At first, my initial reaction to this part of Bad Bunny’s (or Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) 2026 Grammys acceptance speech for winning best música urbana album for his 2025 album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS was “How can I love someone who hates me?”
As I continued watching the show on someone’s random TikTok livestream, I sat with this thought. For me, it is easy to be defensive against this sentiment of showing love to people who are against the peaceful existence of others, partly because it doesn’t make sense to be kind to people who are unbearably hateful for no good reason. And yet, there are historical instances where others were also proponents of showing love against hate. For example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s perspectives on non-violence against violent perpetrators of hate (i.e., the Klu Klux Klan), during a time where Black folks were exhausted of consistent targets to their livelihoods, derived from centuries of oppression and blatant hatred, non-violence likely seemed to be the long way out. Still, King’s perspectives came from his belief in the “Christian doctrine of love” that non-violence is one of the most powerful weapons against the oppressor. On the other hand, figures like Malcolm X would not agree with the perspective of “loving your enemy,” and instead, would propose ways in which fighting the oppressor should be an act that they cannot ignore, including palpable ways of demonstrating the pain and grief that the Black community was tired of experiencing. However, despite the seemingly polar opposite perspectives between these two key figures during the Civil Rights Movement, there are nuances.
Courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
For Malcolm X, there are instances where he diffused escalations of violence and did not throw the first punches. The difference is that he would not disagree with being prepared to show the oppressor their own weapons in defense to prevent further escalations that could cost a life: "If you have a cocked fist, you don't have to throw it." While Martin Luther King Jr. remained firm in his stance on non-violence due to his theological beliefs, he could understand why violence was an initial instinct for many.
But it is the realization that violence is happening to our communities anyways that complicates the reaction of what to do in defense of immorality. I am not a psychologist, so I do not formally understand the complexities of human reactions to the things we experience, and how trauma is received and processed, but I do know that there is a fight, flight, and freeze response to perceived threats to our survival. So, when violence, which is driven by hate, happens to us, why not fight back in the same way? Why not provoke these same feelings to the people who are tearing our communities apart, who spread lies about who we are, and who do not care whether we live or die?
Minneapolis, Minnesota. Courtesy of REUTERS/Brian Snyder.
I don’t have a perfect answer. I think this is a personal journey to reconcile with how we can all physically respond and mentally tolerate expressions of hate. Part of this comes from learning from our past, but also from celebrating what we have been able to accomplish as a community. Therefore, there is one word that I keep coming back to as I navigate personally processing the multiple attacks against our immigrant and farmworker communities: solidarity.
When I first became active in the farmworker justice movement, it was during my final year in undergrad at UNC-Chapel Hill when a Google search for internships in North Carolina directed me to Student Action with Farmworkers’ website and their call for students in the Research Triangle to apply to an academic-year internship called Solidaridad — solidarity in Spanish. I remember being moved by SAF’s mission and seeing myself reflected in their goal of serving a population that, until that point, I did not realize was like what my own father experienced working as a catcher at chicken farms for my hometown’s poultry plant. SAF considered him a farmworker, and as someone who grew up in rural North Carolina, I wanted to learn more about who I considered to be my community.
Personal Image/Solidaridad 2022-2023
For a first-generation college student about to graduate from undergrad at a predominately white institution, without knowing what was coming next and who felt quite alone with processing how the COVID-19 pandemic was a constant reminder of all the ways in which our immigrant communities were vulnerable, solidarity looked like this:
It looked like hoping on the 400 bus in Chapel Hill at around 10:20 am, being dropped off at the Durham bus station after about 45 minutes, hoping on the 5 bus, and being dropped off near 1200 Spaulding St. It looked like being let into the SAF office by Victoria, the Grassroots Organizer in 2022, and being asked how my day has been. It looked like entering a room with 3 other students who shared similar passions and hopes as me, laughing with one another as we shared lunch together. Afterwards, it looked like engaging in conversations about previous organizers and their work within the farmworker justice movement, learning about the history of the agricultural industry and its roots in slavery, and modern-day efforts to ensure that farmworkers, who put food on our tables, are able to harvest with dignity and protect their livelihoods.
Personal Image/ITF 2023
According to Merriam Webster, solidarity means “unity (as of a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards.” In Spanish, solidaridad reflects a feeling of needing to cooperate and support one another to create a collective space where we can provide sustenance to our individual needs, hopes, and dreams. The lessons I learned through these Friday workshops, the connections I made, and the skills that I gathered in learning about advocacy and grassroots organizing, happened because someone decided to stand in solidarity with me. I could continue in solidarity because this group cared to listen to my personal reflections on the injustices that were happening in the world, cared to hear my ideas of a better future, and cared to contribute their own reflections and ideas to the larger conversation. Later, when I was an “Into the Fields” intern during the summer after I graduated, I was met with similar connections to my Solidaridad cohort, solidifying that I was not alone with my hopes of advocating for farmworkers within my community and across the country.
Personal Image/ITF 2023
When Bad Bunny stood on the Grammys stage and accepted his Grammy for the album that later in the night led him to being the first winner of Album of the Year for a Spanish-language album, he stood in solidarity with his country and his people. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is a personal telling of his own experiences in Puerto Rico and a reflection of how love, loss, joy, and hope have molded him into the person he is today. But it is also an homage to the history of his country, and a reminder that we must not forget where we come from and the roads that have led us to this place. There is pain behind this story, like so many of our own stories as descendants from Latin American countries, and our current struggle to be treated with the respect and dignity that we deserve. American imperialism is the sore that hasn’t healed, and many of the individuals who solely recognize the United States as home have been blinded to the truth out of convenience.
And yet, the messages we share about who we are and where we come from need to be shared again and again and again. On the Grammys stage, on the Super Bowl’s stage, in the SAF office, in the classroom, at the doctor’s office, during a corporate meeting, at the dinner table, in a newsletter, and so many more locations. Storytelling is a form of solidarity since the beginning of time – a collective telling of an experience to build unity or to provoke the same feeling or thoughts at one time to those who engage with these stories. Real stories, not fake propaganda that is a tactic used to maintain systems of oppression. We know our truth. I can love someone who hates me because their hatred is fabricated. It’s not based on reality. It is my hope that I can lead them to the truth in my voice.
Solidarity is love in action when we recognize that we all have different ways of processing hate. We can reflect on history, admire the courage of those who fought for the oppressed, support the resilience of folks who still fight against oppression and violence against our communities, and still come on top by not succumbing to a movement based on the enjoyment of others’ suffering. Still, it is a personal journey, but it does not have to be a lonely one. Solidarity becomes love when we lift each other up and say “el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.”
Courtesy of ABC News