I'd like to write something clever about this, but I don't think I'm up to it this early. So:
- "Latino," in this context, is more of a political alliance than an ethnicity.
- When people say there's no single Black community, I consider the Latino case (which is ironic in a way).
- Blacks and Latinos should NOT let this type of discussion divide us more than our natural differences require.
Blacks and Latinos Try to Find Balance in Touchy New Math
By MIREYA NAVARRO
The Web site for Black Entertainment Television put the question bluntly: "Does it bother you that Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans in the U.S.?"
The response has been torrential. One visitor to the site wrote, "Blacks are beginning to experience another wave of racial bias and favoritism not in our favor." The writer complained that employers now have a preference for bilingual applicants, and bemoaned "attempts to replace our threatening stance against discrimination with a Hispanic vote."
But another cautioned: "Sounds like the same old trick to me. `Divide and conquer.' Are we really going to let some numbers dictate how we treat one another?"
The BET.com message board is only one forum, but it has evoked some of the emotions, worries, hopes and even awkwardness that have been felt nationwide over a singular moment in American demographics. Last summer, the Census Bureau announced that Latinos had surpassed blacks as the country's largest minority, with blacks making up 13.1 percent of the population in 2002, and Hispanics 13.4 percent.
That statistical shift, years in the making, hardly came as a surprise. Yet it has captured the attention of both Latinos and blacks, who have been grappling with its meaning in meeting rooms, on radio shows and on the Internet.
Those conversations have raised hard questions: Does the ascendance of Hispanics mean a decline in the influence of blacks? Does it doom, or encourage, alliances between the two groups? Does the old formula for those alliances — shared grievances — have much meaning given the diversity of income and status even within each group?
Posted by P6 at January 17, 2004 09:35 AM
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Comments
I plan on devoting some serious attention to this subject in a week or so, from a "Latino" perspective. But here are a couple of thoughts:
Grouping Chicanos, Cubanos, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorenos, etc. because they have "Spanish culture or heritage" makes no more sense than grouping together Quebecois, Cajuns and Haitians because they have "French culture or heritage." And hardly anyone (not even me, although I have mixed Chicano/Mexican and Puerto Rican ancestry) thinks of himself or herself as "Latino" as opposed to part of some smaller group. So the fear shouldn't so much that Latinos are taking over as that non-Latino political leaders will use Blacks' status as the "second largest minority" to ignore them just as they have ignored (for example) Chicano communities for decades.
Latinos are a "political alliance"? LOL! All you need to do to see that isn't true is go to some national Hispanic conference where the Florida contingent tries to get the group to condemn Fidel, or start mocking the leftist tendencies of the southwestern Chicanos. The biggest promoters of the "Hispanics are the largest minority" meme are people whose business is Spanish-language marketing. Second biggest are politicians who have gotten desperate from being told by other politicians that our communities are too small to matter.
One of the big hurdles for Latinos and Asian-Americans is the perception that we are not really Americans (while Blacks are). That's the potential wedge we need to be alert about.
(By the way, good looking new site.)
Posted by Luis at January 17, 2004 10:43 AMThanks for the design props. I still have a few minor tweaks no one but me will notice, but I'm pretty happy with it. Maybe best of all, I can pretty much crank sites like this now.
Now, the serious stuff:
So the fear shouldn't so much that Latinos are taking over as that non-Latino political leaders will use Blacks' status as the "second largest minority" to ignore them just as they have ignored (for example) Chicano communities for decades.Latinos are a "political alliance"? LOL! All you need to do to see that isn't true is go to some national Hispanic conference where the Florida contingent tries to get the group to condemn Fidel, or start mocking the leftist tendencies of the southwestern Chicanos.
We're not in disagreement here. It's just amusing from my perspective to see folks lump so many ethnicities into a single "minority group" when people would like to disperse the Black communities…which actually is a single ethnicity…based on class issues.
One of the big hurdles for Latinos and Asian-Americans is the perception that we are not really Americans (while Blacks are).
Really?
When you write up this issue, I'd appreciate a ping, okay?
Posted by P6 at January 17, 2004 04:50 PMIn your experience, do you often get told to "go back where you came from"? If yes, then Luis is incorrect. If not, then that's part of what he's getting at. Latinos and Asian-Americans are often assumed to be immigrants even when their families might have been in the U.S. for generations.
P.S. I've discovered that a white girl can get people to tell her to "go back where you came from" by wearing Muslim veiling. Variations on the idea that my dress and hence myself are not really American are the most common thing I hear.
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at January 18, 2004 05:30 AMI've experienced being told to "go back to the trees," if that counts.
Still, I'm the first to admit my own reactions are unusual. I'm never surprised when anoter difference arises.
Posted by P6 at January 18, 2004 07:10 AMI don't think this is an "either-or" thing. It's probably more like a spectrum. Latinos may tend to hear certain types of racist remarks more than other types. Blacks may tend to hear the other types of racist remarks more than the first kind. But there's a lot of overlap too and some of it can be shared by people who appear to be culturally rather than racially different.
When people become more open-minded and willing to accept and appreciate differences, then all groups who are visibly different in some way benefit from it. But groups also have different historical experiences in America that affect where their communities are today and solving the problems in these communities depends on addressing the historical experience. A simple diversity campaign won't solve the problems in our inner cities - or on our Indian reservations.
I recently finished reading "The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central District from 1870 to the Civil Rights Era" (reviewed here). One of the author's themes is that racial dynamics in Seattle have been different than they are in the South or in the Northeast because Seattle has had a large Asian population as long as it's had a black population and some of the worst racial violence was against Chinese. So we also have to consider these local variations in devising solutions.
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at January 18, 2004 08:18 AMI've been told to get out of the hood and back to the rich white North Dallas, if it is any consolation. Which it isn't. (And I've never livd in North Dallas, or anywhere other than the hood, for that matter. About the time I was able to leave, I decided that I didn't mind it.)
Posted by Phelps at January 19, 2004 02:37 PMGroupthink is dangerous.
Posted by Brian at January 21, 2004 01:08 PM