TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/072991/0729100.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 9.4 KB | 204 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 14

RACE RELATIONS

Browns vs. Blacks


Once solidly united in the fight for equality, America's two
largest minority groups have turned on each other in a fight
for power

By ALEX PRUD'HOMME -- Reported by Ricardo Chavira/Washington,
Sylvester Monroe/Los Angeles and Richard Woodbury/Houston


    Bitter divisions are breaking out between the nation's
two largest minorities. Once solidly united in the drive for
equality, blacks and Hispanics are now often at odds over such
issues as jobs, immigration and political empowerment. At the
root of the quarrels is a seismic demographic change: early in
the next century, Hispanics will outnumber African Americans
for the first time.

    Though the differences were long submerged, they burst
into the open last year just before the annual awards dinner of
the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in Washington.
Instead of easy talk between old friends, an angry argument
erupted. Contending that immigration laws discriminate against
Latino workers, Hispanics asked the group to support repeal of
the legislation. At first blacks refused, charging that Latino
immigrants take jobs away from poor blacks. Furious, Hispanics
threatened to storm out in protest. Only eleventh-hour diplomacy
by Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, coaxed the
Latinos back to the table.

    As their numbers have grown, Hispanics have become more
strident in their demands for a larger slice of the economic and
political pie. Blacks, long accustomed to being the senior
partner in the minority coalition, fear that those gains will
come at their expense. Meanwhile, demagogues on both sides have
pitted black against brown in a bid for short-term political
advantage. Says Arthur Fletcher, chairman of the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights: "On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put
Latino-black relations on the negative side of 5."

    Increasingly, these long-simmering tensions are flaring
into violence, especially in cities where one of the groups has
a monopoly on political power. Last May, Hispanics in
black-controlled Washington went on a two-day rampage after a
Latino man was wounded by a black police officer. In
Cuban-dominated Miami four weeks ago, blacks briefly rioted
following the overturn of the conviction of a Hispanic police
officer for killing two black motorcyclists. It was the sixth
such disturbance in 10 years.

    Underlying the disputes is a growing divergence of the
interests of the two groups, reinforced by mutual suspicion.
Black and Hispanic leaders, says Alejandro Portes, a sociologist
at Johns Hopkins University, "see everything as a zero-sum game.
If blacks get something, Latinos lose something, and vice
versa." Many African Americans believe that Latinos are
benefiting from civil rights victories won by blacks with little
help from Hispanics. Says Fletcher: "During the height of the
civil rights movement, Hispanics were conspicuous by their
absence. They kept asking, `What about us?' But rather than
joining us in fighting the system, Hispanics were fighting us
for the crumbs. And that in large part is still what's going
on."

    For their part, some Hispanics complain that blacks are
unwilling to treat them as equals in the fight for equal rights.
"We sometimes have assumed that because blacks have fought civil
rights battles, they are more sensitive to our struggle," says
Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza,
a federation of 140 Hispanic organizations. "That's not always
the case. Blacks say to us, `You're whiter than us. You're
immigrants, and we've seen people like you get ahead of us. So
we're going to be very suspicious of you." The major points of
contention:



    IMMIGRATION. In Miami the roots of Latino-black antipathy
date back to the arrival of thousands of refugees from Castro's
Cuba during the 1960s. Many of the newcomers benefited from
U.S. government programs that provided $1 billion worth of
refugee-assistance payments and small-business loans. Even
worse, the immigrants soon began taking most of the menial jobs
in the tourist-hotel industry, the city's largest source of
employment.

    Relations have frayed even more because of U.S.
immigration policy. Washington's hostility to Castro's regime
means that nearly all Cuban immigrants are treated as political
refugees and allowed to remain in the U.S. But almost all the
would-be immigrants from Haiti are classified as economic
refugees and sent back to their homeland. The disparity in
treatment was vividly illustrated in early July, when a Coast
Guard cutter intercepted a fishing boat carrying 161 Haitians
and two Cubans they had plucked from a raft in the Caribbean.
Both Cubans were permitted to stay in the U.S. All but nine of
the Haitians were sent home.



    POLITICS. Although black and Hispanic voters have often
united behind candidates from one group or the other, attempts
to weld long-lasting political coalitions in most large cities
have been difficult to sustain. A case in point: the
Latino-black alliance that helped elect Harold Washington as
Chicago's first black mayor in 1983. Nearly 7 out of 10
Hispanics voted for Washington and gained a voice in local
politics they had never had before. Acknowledging the importance
of the Hispanic vote, Washington appointed Latinos to several
key positions.

    But cracks appeared in the coalition after it became known
that blacks were being hired for patronage jobs at a much
higher rate than Hispanics. When Washington suddenly died in
1987 just a few months into his second term, a succession battle
split the city. Two years later, 75% of Hispanics deserted the
black candidate, city alderman Timothy Evans, and cast their
ballots for the winner, Richard M. Daley, son of the late
Chicago boss. Explains alderman Luis Gutierrez: "Rich Daley sent
a message -- `I'll build a coalition with Hispanics, and my
government will respond to you."



    JOBS. Many blacks fear that Hispanic immigrants, who are
often willing to work for less than the legal minimum wage, are
supplanting them in even the lowliest positions. "Young black
males stand on the street corner every day," says James H.
Johnson, director of UCLA'S Center for the Study of Urban
Poverty. "Hispanic males stand on the street corner too. But
somebody comes by and takes them to work. Nobody picks up black
males but the police. Blacks look at Hispanics as the problem."

    Hispanics say that blacks resist any attempts to increase
Latino employment. In Los Angeles County, for example, blacks,
who make up 10% of the population, hold 30% of the county jobs.
Hispanics, who constitute 33% of the population, hold only 18%
of the jobs. "Blacks think we want to take jobs away from them,
so they're fighting us tooth and nail," says Raul Nunez,
president of the Los Angeles County Chicano Employees
Association. "They are doing the same thing to us that whites
did to them."



    What leaders in both camps fear most is that some white
politicians will try to exploit their divisions by playing off
the two groups against each other. Before George Bush selected
black Appeals Court Judge Clarence Thomas to fill the Supreme
Court seat vacated by Thurgood Marshall, the White House let it
be known that a Hispanic jurist, Emilio Garza, was also being
considered. Some Latinos believe that the information was leaked
mainly to lure Hispanics to the Republican banner.

    Some Hispanics and blacks are working to heal the rift
between them. Last July, African-American and Latino scholars
and politicians met at Harvard University to air their
grievances. "We are seeing that it is time for society to pay
attention to Hispanics' much delayed political maturation," says
Christopher Edley, a black Harvard Law School professor. "The
jury is still out on how the black community will respond: Will
we welcome the growing strength of a longtime ally, or will we
respond by feeling threatened or displaced?"

    Events in Los Angeles could provide a model for how the
two groups can work together. Last year Hispanic activists won
a major victory when a federal judge ruled that the Los Angeles
County board of supervisors had gerrymandered election
districts to prevent Latino candidates from winning a seat on
the powerful governing body, and ordered the lines to be
redrawn. The case had been brought under the Voting Rights Act,
one of the major fruits of the black civil rights struggle, and
it resulted in the election last February of Gloria Molina, the
first Hispanic supervisor since 1875.

    From the start, lawyers for the Hispanic plaintiffs
consulted with blacks to ensure that their voting strength was
not diluted by the redistricting. "We shared our plans with
them, they shared their plans with us, and we came up with a
plan that didn't step on anybody's toes," says Richard P.
Fajardo, an attorney for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund.

    If current trends in immigration and birth rates continue,
minorities will outnumber white Americans midway through the
21st century. Under those circumstances, blacks and Hispanics
have no choice but to collaborate. They have far more to gain
from pooling their strengths than from bickering with each
other.