THE ELEPHANT ON THE TABLE BLOG
Do you ever encounter an issue that is a huge problem, but people don’t want to talk about it because it’s too uncomfortable or hard to talk about? Well there’s a phrase for it, ‘the Elephant on the Table’, and Subtle Tensions is the segment in an ongoing series that will tackle various Elephants on the Table that are otherwise not very much publicly discussed. Subtle Tensions will address the black vs. brown conflict in America (see below), but we'll also tackle institutional racism and the American Dream.
Subtle Tensions: The Black-Brown Conflict in the U.S.
Part I
By Ali Ahmed
Over the course of Active Citizen Project’s activities we’ve come across a lot of unpleasant things and one of them involve interethnic ‘tensions’ between two groups you would think would get along great, African Americans and Latinos. Sure, blacks and Latinos seem to get along alright in everyday life and the groups live near each other in the same neighborhoods without too many problems, but when you look closer you can see the tensions beneath the surface.
In ACP community activities, the two groups tend to hang out with their own ethnic cliques, and often get into side squabbles or give each other eye-roles and other dirty looks on the sly. These are the more common, everyday ways in which tensions surface. Sometimes the tensions can emerge in even more direct, shocking ways however. Like when ACP facilitators encountered one black man who went so far as to say that if Hispanics really wanted to be citizens, the could go to Iraq and fight and earn the right to live in America just like blacks had to suffer through slavery first to get their status.” Yet, despite how evident these tensions are, it seems like people aren’t talking about them, and maybe aren’t even willing to talk about them. We at ACP decided that this issue of ‘black-brown’ tensions needed to be explored so that we could get to the root of why this rivalry even exists.
Sensational Topic
I should point out that this rivalry does get some overly sensationalistic media attention that doesn’t really help get to the bottom of solving the problem. For example, news reports usually focus on violence and if there is even a hint of ‘racism’ then it is even better for ratings. Nothing grabs headlines faster than a story about “ethnic tensions” as any visit to CBS, CNN, Fox News or any other major news network illustrates. Unfortunately, as with youth violence in Los Angeles between black and Latino gangs, the focus is on high school riots and fights, which, although important, overlooks the everyday instances of self-imposed segregation, mistrust, competition for jobs and housing, perceived insults and slights, stereotyping comments and views, work-related discrimination, and conflicting political agendas. For many Americans, including me before I started researching this topic, the black-brown conflict is either something they have never heard of or is only relatable to gang violence.
I knew of gang violence in Los Angeles, having lived there for nearly six years, and I had heard about prison conflicts between Latino and black inmates (with films like American Me illustrating the growing divide and hostility), but the topic itself still seems to be seen as not important or too uncomfortable to discuss, especially by blacks and Latinos themselves. I actually watched American Me (a gangster film directed by Edward James Olmos that is based on the true story of the rise of the so-called ‘Mexican Mafia’ starting in the 1950s) at a Los Angeles theater in Westwood and overheard a group of African Americans talking about how they felt that the conflict between blacks and Latinos was simply “bullshit” and they seemed to get really annoyed at instances of racism depicted in the film, especially when coming from Mexican-Americans. One particular scene during the film, when the leaders of the Mexican Mafia plot to attack the Black Guerilla Faction, agitated the African Americans, especially when the gang leaders used derogatory terms for African Americans (although they did the same when discussing Italians and others).
”It Divides People and It’s Not True”
This sort of displeasure at seeing hostility between blacks and Latinos came up again some time later when an old African American roommate of mine became outraged when he saw a TV news report about Latino-black gang violence and commented that, “They shouldn’t sensationalize crap like that. It divides people and it’s not true.” For my roommate the conflict only existed because the media was sensationalizing it and exploiting isolated incidents. He preferred to see blacks and Latinos as allies and wanted to ignore anything that highlighted interethnic tensions.
This view, it turns out, is very common amongst African Americans and Latinos who want to hold onto the idea of a united front of ethnic minorities agitating for concessions and equality from the white establishment. Author Nicolas C. Vaca writes, in The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America, that some of his associates and friends distanced themselves from him for tackling an uncomfortable topic they wanted to ignore.
Ethnic Identity Issues
Invariably, when examining the issue of black-brown tensions, one has to tackle other uncomfortable issues, which brings us to the multi-ethnic origins of Latinos themselves. While some Latino groups are partially or mainly of African ancestry (such as people from the Dominican Republic) there are others who may be of largely European ancestry (like Cuban-Americans who are mainly descended from the ruling upper class that fled after the Castro revolution in 1959) and mestizos (those of mixed Native American and European origin from Mexico) who make-up the bulk of Latinos in the US at close to two-thirds of the Latino population. Thus, the views and conditions of Latinos vary from California to New York to Florida. It’s no secret that Cuban-Americans dominate Floridian politics and their ease of assimilation may be due to their largely European origins, whereas the partial African ancestry of Dominicans and some Puerto Ricans has not led to natural alliances with African Americans in order to agitate for more political power.
Prof. Shelly Anderson of Ohio State University looks into Latino-black relations in New York City, in her book An Uneasy Alliance: Blacks and Latinos in New York City Politics, and notes that the divide is due to different ways of looking at ethnicity in Latin America where people who aren’t one race or another are (accurately) seen as ‘mixed’ (such as mulattos or those of mixed African and European ancestry).
Identity Perception
In addition, the perceptions of Latino immigrants vary from that of their American-born children who become either comfortable with the notion of a distinct Latino ‘ethnic’ identity with some picking up on the media depiction of a ‘brown’ race and others who are of African ancestry and adopt African American cultural traits and may even identify themselves as African American.
These views are very different from the American perception of ‘pure’ races derived from the old, but still accepted, concept of the ‘one drop rule’ that defines people as only black or white. Also, for African Americans there was little choice but to accept how the white establishment defined racial purity to them (just as Spaniards, Portuguese and other Europeans defined it in Latin America). Perceptions aside, Latinos are officially recognized and politically organized as an ethnic minority, one that has surpassed African Americans to become the largest minority in the US as of 2003. This has had significant social ramifications that have shaped inter-ethnic relations and perceptions.
Stereotypes
There are a lot of stereotypes among Latinos and African Americans. These stereotypes are often based upon Latino perceptions from their respective home countries while African American views of Latinos vary with some seeing them as disruptive ‘neo-conquistadors’ looking to take-over and marginalize earlier communities. Mexican immigrants, many of whom are personally unfamiliar with people of African descent, come with preconceived notions of blacks, just as some African Americans feel as if immigrants are coming and forcing them out of their neighborhoods and are, to add insult to injury, taking away their jobs.
Many of the stereotypes each group has of the other have become the subject of analysis including studies done in the mid-1990s which reveal some of the most typical stereotypes. In one study that asked the views of both males and females, Latinos viewed African American men in both negative and positive ways including seeing them as “athletic, pleasant, and sociable” as well as “antagonistic”, loud and “criminal”, while blacks viewed Latino males as hardworking, attractive and intelligent as well as antagonistic and alcoholic. Black views of Latinas were mostly positive: “attractive, family oriented, and determined; ‘passive’ was the only negative descriptor.” Latino views of African American women were more negative with most seeing them as loud, “egotistical, unmannerly, antagonistic, and lacking ambition;” but also being “athletic, sociable, and fashion-conscious.” Other studies have shown surprising results as a higher percentage of Latinos than white Anglos surveyed believed that blacks prefer to live on welfare, while blacks had similar views of Latinos. Surprisingly, in these surveys, the negatives views blacks and Latinos had of each other were more common than negative responses from whites.
These stereotypes become obvious in instances when sudden demographic changes take place or when one group moves into a different neighborhood. Along these lines, for example, following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, many poor African Americans relocated to other parts of the country with hundreds ending up in Denver, Colorado. Many were given temporary shelter in largely Latino areas and, although community leaders publicly welcomed them, many of their constituents were not quite so happy to see them moving in. Many of the same stereotypes expressed in previous studies became apparent, but not in ways that one might imagine, with some Latino home owners calling real estates agents to sell their homes in order to avoid a drop in property values to others who feared losing their jobs to the evacuees.
Rights & Histories
In addition, while Latinos are largely immigrants (to the US anyway) or descended from immigrants, African Americans are not and this also shapes the divergent world-views of each. From the black POV, their ancestors were forced to come to the US and have been fighting for equality ever since. For slaves and their descendents there was no pursuit of the American Dream or flight from religious persecution—an experience that has no real parallels. From the Latino perspective, all Americans are immigrants (perhaps pointing to the ancient migrations of Native Americans from Siberia as the beginning), and many do not always realize that African Americans are the exception. Latino perceptions vary as many view themselves as rightful inhabitants of the southwest (the Aztlan proponents who believe that the southwest is an extension of both pre- and post-European Mexico), a view African Americans (and other Americans including many Native Americans) find disagreeable. Plus, the issue of race is often as touchy a subject amongst Latinos as it is in the US with African ancestry often being seen as a problem when trying to move up the socio-economic ladder in Latin America. Thus, as a result of Euro-Spanish colonialism, for many Latinos, emphasizing Spanish ancestry and less prestigious Native American origins are preferable, whereas African origins are downplayed or ignored. With such different world-views it is not surprising that there is hostility and this divide often translates into competition (rather than cooperation) over living space, resources, and jobs.
Next Week
But the important economic and political ramifications of the black-brown conflict are a topic that we will have to return to in the next installment of Subtle Tensions…
