The thing about this sentiment is that it assumes that Ras has a choice // that it's easy to replace people.

Loyalty is a huge thing in his circle + in the black community generally.

Him replacing 1 person could be a bad look, and on the flip side, the replacement could be bad for business because they don't have any loyalty towards him.

This is a problem in and of itself because politics shouldn't be structured via loyalty but I digress.

There's also a possibility that this is just one of his flaws. It's rare to be awesome in all regards

Spanish people have been little bro to black people since the civil rights movement.

They were given the same dirt as us and treated in a very similar way.

In some cases, you'd see Spanish people get promoted over black people that had more experience than them, simply because of racism, but for the most part, they've struggled with us.

Nowadays, after years of living in the ghetto besides us, there's a growing sentiment that Spanish people don't need black people // don't want to be little bro // second fiddle anymore.

There's a belief that the dysfunction we see In the black community, is mostly limited to the black community, and Spanish people can and will do better than us, and as a result, deserve to be separated from us and treated in a higher regard.

There's truth to this, insofar as the ironbound being dope, but as I'm not from there, a better example I can give is my home city of Plainfield.

30 years ago, Plainfield was filled with niggas. Now it's pretty much 60% Spanish and rising.

The thing about Plainfield today, is that the rising Spanish population is low-key revitalizing the city.

Downtown sucks ass, but they don't care. They cherish it and do business down there. The downtown area has been sort of merged with North Plainfields downtown area, and even though the architecture is outdated and shit is ass, it's low-key jumping.

It's vibrant and there's people making moves. The Spanish people in Plainfield are really good at taking care of what they inherit.

As opposed to back when we were running things, Downtown sucked, and stayed barren + there was no unity between Plainfield and North Plainfield.

That's the long and short of it. The situation isn't black and white, and black people are still traumatized after 400 years of targeted, systemic oppression, however, an outsider looking in, would wager that black people suck and that Spanish people are excellent enough to run their own shit and be fully in charge of their own communities.