The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Carrington — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:12:28 -0000

Dumb.

There's a difference between tribalism and American racism.

One is an -- admittedly sometimes violent -- distrust of the other, the other is a system that crystallized around the institution of slavery in an effort to defend the indefensible.

To be sure, Latinos and white ethnics in the north were coopted into the U.S.'s racial ideology to some extent. And tribalism can be a gateway drug. But it's all too convenient for the racists themselves to be able to spread the blame and obscure the basic contours of the system.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Ace_of_Sevens — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:06:15 -0000

The other posters basically have it. There was some violence and a few riots, but nothing systematic like white on black violnce, which has no equal in U.S. history except maybe the treatment of Native Americans.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Bruins2Lakers — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:14:54 -0000

What has been a tense racial conflict in the southwestern US could spill out onto other areas as this is predominantly between Mexican Americans and Blacks, and in the case of immigration, perhaps some whites are lining up alongside Blacks. This is my take on how it went down in Los Angeles because my kids have seen this in lunchtime fights at their schools. (It hasn't happened just in public schools, either. Some Catholic schools have had the same problem.)

Black folks have carried the ball and chain of racism ever since being kidnapped and taken to America as slaves. Only now, that ball is smaller, the chain far lighter and portable--but it's still there, of course.

Enter illegals. Not people who gained citizenship here, but those who jumped the fences and rode in packed vans, then went to work for rich people in Malibu as domestics, or in the service industry. Yes, some

work 3 jobs. Their kids are in public schools--schools that blacks fought for 100 years to gain entry into and finally needed a lot of outside help to get it. They apply to work in schools hospitals and social service agencies and are told they need to be bilingual. Teachers here in the public schools are being told they need an English language learner's certificate after decades in the profession. You can see the resentment building on this side.

Mexican-Americans, for their part--the illegals, specifically--have no knowledge of Black History or any understanding of the significance embedded within those years of blood and sweat.

Then, too, this generation isn't too crazy about history. They have a tough time connecting the dots. In Baron Davis' tremendous production of the documentary "Bloods and Crips,"clearly we see how the racist police chief William Parker pushed Black families into one tiny section of South L.A.forbidding migration into white neighborhoods.

Who is living there now? Hispanics, alongside the blacks who are too economically challenged or too embedded in the neighborhood culturally to leave. They are free to also live wherever they want, thanks to The Civil Rights Bill of 1965, that was never fought for by Mexican Americans. The only other groups who stepped in to take a billy club or bullet were Catholic nuns and Priests--usually Jesuits--and young Jewish college students.

So, in 2009, there is a resentment and contempt, as much as both groups try to live peacefully. Because there is still ignorance, there is an underlying uneasiness that could blow up at any time. Right now, the economy here is so devastating--colleges and public schools are being forced to shut down, (my sons' college classes were cancelled and they are both still unemployed), while the state is on the verge of bankruptcy--there could be bloodshed this summer as everyone will be affected in domino-like fashion. Pray for us, East Coast.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Inaru — Sat, 30 May 2009 08:28:24 -0000

Makes sense to me, I'm Boricua/Nuyorican (NYT spelled it Newyorkican or some such nonsense, how I laughed!). We're too often pushed into either invisibility or inferiority, until we get angry, then we're just dangerous "hostiles".

But the key word people use a lot to categorize the Latino/Black hostilities is "gangs", yet so few trace why these gangs turn on each other so much more violently than prior gangs from similar (eg Italian-Irish=European) backgrounds. I think it's prisons. I've little doubt that's also what escalated the violence between Italians and the Irish, but incarceration has reached epidemic proportions now. Paired with the covert gun dealing, also at historic levels, and we've got a bloodbath.

Never before have so many Americans, esp Black and Latino Americans, disproportionate numbers of Native Americans and of course poor whites, been incarcerated in such numbers (2 million incarcerated now, 5 million altogether in jail or prison or probation or parole). Prisons as a policy segregate prisoners, probably since Attica, where prisoners of all ethnicities/races united to take prison guards as hostages, 10 of the guards were killed and 29 prisoners. Ever since, it's the ultimate Divide and Conquer, and it's working only too well.

No other environment in modern developed countries is as vile and violent and dehumanizing as prisons'. The neverending revolving door of incarceration promotes the historical divisions of slavery and colonization and genocide, and of course classism. Every groups' prejudices and competitions is hyped to intolerable and seemingly insurmountable levels of animosity.

In the "pen"itentiaries, men especially are treated like deadly but subjugated animals. They're provoked into a more brutal and deadly competition than even in ghettos, where primarily white landlords establish an order of preferred renters that also foments hostilities. Gangs that simply marked and respected turfs have no such choice in prisons, where hostilities often result in rapes and murders, and a cycle of revenge for such brutalities is periodically dumped back into the ghettos, then dragged back into the pen, and back again.

Until we put a stop to our American gulags, and the new Jim Crow that manifests as legalized political and financial disenfranchisement, we'll see an escalation in hostilities between the ethnic groups and poor whites that bloodies our neighborhoods daily. Until we reign in the weapons manufacturers and dealers, there will be more casualties, often innocent bystanders, and a deadlier ever-widening circle of attack/counterattack.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Mark — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:47:19 -0000

Dropping all those final 's's from words is a great benefit to those of us who conjugate poorly.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

arbutus1440 — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:20:00 -0000

Thanks for the article, TNC.

Speaking of us white folks: Occasionally people tell me that I've got too much white guilt.

Uh, no I don't.

"We" subjugated, enslaved, and murdered. It was (and is) pervasive and institutionalized. And now it's white people who no longer see much tangible evidence of racism in their immediate sphere who (usually b/c they live surrounded by other white people in an insulated burb of some sort) falsely infer that racism's just not that big of a deal anymore and secretly in their heart of hearts convince themselves that those blacks must just be whining--They're the ones whose dream world is interrupted by an Obama or Sotomayor or Ice-T or Reverend Wright, and they rely on the Rush Limbaughs to hit the snooze button for them.

Having been raised in pasty-white Montana and NW Iowa, these are my ilk, so yes, I'm a guilty white guy.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Mercutio42 — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:04:56 -0000

I figure Ace will be back in a bit to respond himself, but I don't think russd deliberately misunderstood the post. It seems pretty clear to me that Ace was saying that the contemporary black-Hispanic relationship may be more comparable to the historical Irish-Italian relationship than it is to the historical black-white relationship.

Reading it that way, while there was most certainly violence between the Irish and the Italians -- as russd notes -- it was not "widespread" on the same level as TNC cites for the systemic violence perpetrated against blacks by whites.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

iquo_essien — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:45:12 -0000

I agree. Sometimes I cut other writers slack for trying to find a story where there maybe isn't one, but writing for TIME adds another layer of journalistic responsibility. And more often than not, inflaming differences between blacks and Latinos is a manipulative attempt to divide and conquer, not unlike this global war waging between Muslims and the West I've been hearing so much about.

There are likely more differences within the black race than there are between blacks and Latinos, particularly those growing up in the same inner-city neighborhoods, or those organizing on the same college campuses where various "ethnic" communities roll deep.

And when you get right down to it, I think we all understand that, whether black or brown, none of us can get a cab.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

pete from baltimore — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:32:41 -0000

Violence is bad no matter who commits it.But I think the thing to realise is that the violence commited against some white people by some black people nowdays, is about individuals attacking other individuals.

This does not excuse it by any means.But much of the violence committed against blacks in the 19th and early 20th century was institutionalised violence that was sanctioned and tolerated by government officials.

Marion Barry had his faults but he never organized lynch mobs against white people.

I am white and live in Baltimore City in the racially mixed neighborhood of Highlandtown .But i do not fear the leaders of my city who are black.And as for the young hooligans who are black,they will mug a black person just as quickly as they will mug me.I do not feel that it is a case of white against black.It is a case of law abiding people against cowardly thugs.

I have a lot more in common with my law abiding black neighbors than I did with the white heroin addict who terrorised our block until he was kicked out.

Thugs are thugs.And most of these thugs nowdays are an embarrassment to the HUMAN race.The white thugs do not represent me.And the black or hispanic thugs do not represent their communities as far as I am concerned . Pretending that they do , is to give them credit that they do not deserve.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

keith — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:29:35 -0000

I would like to applaud you for attempting to explain the many chasm's that exist whithin Mexican-American cultures. It's amazing how different the experience of growin up Mexican-American in L.A. are to my own experience of growing up Mexican-American in Dallas, Tx. Its funny when you talked about your mother, my grandmother was the same complexion as your mother. Her mother was spanish/mexican, and father was full blooded comanche Indian yet her and our origins can be traced back to the Dallas and San Antonio region pretty much back to the ice age. She talked of having it rough, because of skin color and friends didn't come easy. But if your family is anything like mine, the greatness of a large family is it makes friends that much less improtant. This is a longwinded way of saying I feel ya.

As for this particular post, again I'm not entrenched to the L.A.scene although have family that lives in Echo Park, I don't buy the "ethnic cleansing" angle, and I think your dead on in regards to regions playing a roll. I recall tensions in Dallas being raised, and ugly incidents in Schools across the D/FW area, but my recollection was that that had more to do with gangs and not some deep seeded resentment to slaves being brought to Latin American. I can say, that it seems like Mexican, Central American prejudice towards anyone not Mexican or Central American is rampant and seems i my experience generational. El Savadorian and Mexican-American gangs are in constant war with each other, I believe MS-13 is derived from the need to beef with traditional Mexican-American gangs(especially in jail), in L.A. And my own personal experience, working summers for my Dad and Grandad who hired Mexican and El Salvadorian workers was that there was always a tension. That seemed to be more about competition for work. I think as a whole, we are a very territorial people and that causes untrust and resentment towards other cultures. That being said, I have never understood this in pertaining to the tensions towards African-Americans. I think in most cases it's overstated, but don't deny there is some there there. Forgive the rambling, my thoughts on this topic have yet to fully mature...

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

silentbeep — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:00:42 -0000

These links of course, aren't ofference a short comprehensive view of white violence against Latinos. This is just a smidegeon of L.A. historical perspective here, just a start...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruben_Salazar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

pete from baltimore — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:34 -0000

Holden

I actually agree with you that i was hypoctritical by lumping all of the media together.I should have said "many in the media".

I do stand by my original point though.

And I am sincere when i say that I am glad you called me out on this.None of us learn if we don't learn from our mistakes.In the future ,I will defintly go out of my way not to overgeneralize .

Best regards to you HOLDEN

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

sporcupine — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:29:33 -0000

No substitute for studying lots of history and counting it as part of your own current life. This mess goes with the folks who think Al Qaeda's as dangerous as Stalin: only possible if you never spent an hour reading and thinking about just what Joe tried and what he got done.

Noticing one of my own gaps: Is there a good short history of white violence against Latinos out there? Long would also be good, except that I've also got customers who expect me to finish some work before June 1....

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

RL — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:20:23 -0000

Agreeing with lebecka. In the 60s, I didn't notice any stories about Italians lynched by Irish mobs in the North End. Was there violence? Yes. Historically significant violence? No.

Not just a difference of degree. Difference of intent. White on black violence puts "them" in their place. Can't be said for Irish - Italian violence, or for that matter, Hispanic-Black violence.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

RL — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:10:27 -0000

Agreed, Persia. There are people posting here with claims that there is Hispanic vs Black violence in LA. Yes there is. Or Irish vs Italian violence in Boston in the 1960s. Yes.

But I didn't notice any stories of Italians or Hispanics burned while hanging from a tree after having their genitals severed. When that story hits HuffPost a few hundred times, that's a hint of the equivalent violence inflicted by whites upon Black citizens in the 20th century.

And we don't really get to equivalency until we add on a couple hundred years in chains. Folks, this isn't an argument. It's called history.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

jwalden91lx — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:54:12 -0000

This whole black vs. brown thing is about as credible as when Rev. Sharpton speaks for "us".

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

RL — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:53:20 -0000

Got me. You're right. The musical truth set them free.

I've spent too much time with my friend Randy from Syracuse. He did his dissertation on Asian stereotypes in musicals (don't get him started on South Pacific).

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

jwalden91lx — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:51:33 -0000

Rush! Aren't you supposed to be on the air right now?

I'm so disappointed. I hope you fail.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

jwalden91lx — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:45:39 -0000

This is so true. Especially that last part about equivalency.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

JMoney — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:29:05 -0000

"The fact is that there was no violent distrust between blacks and whites in the 20th century. Rather there was a one-sided war waged against black people by white terrorists, which government, in the best cases, failed to prevent, in many cases, stood idly by, and in the worst cases actually aided and abetted. I'm sorry but comparing that to whatever's happening between blacks and Latinos, is a slander against both those groups, and an amazingly naive take on the history of white America in regards to race."

This is an absolutely brilliant passage, TNC. Hit the nail on the head.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Sam — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:21:22 -0000

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that sentence TNC cites to be terribly confusing? The words "could be" imply forward looking, but then he refers to the 20th century in the same phrase. TNC seems to interpret the meaning as, "in the 20th century could have been..." And maybe that is what he means. I read the article and don't understand what else he might mean. Hard to believe he'd make such a ridiculous claim.

It's just a confusing sentence.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Holden — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:13:07 -0000

Pete,

I gotta call you on your bullshit here, with "the media thinks" this and "the media is realizing" that. When you say that "the media" overgeneralize, and that the media lump all minorities into the same box, you're overgeneralizing the media and lumping all of its practitioners into the same box.

Plenty of people in "the media" know that Mexicans are different from Puerto Ricans. Heck, I (a reporter) was disappointed when I found out that the Latina Supreme Court nominee was Puerto Rican instead of Mexican. I'm a native Texan, so I was hoping for someone from a more familiar culture. Plus, I don't like to hear Puerto Rican Spanish because they eat their final consonants.

That's what Sotomayor should have said. She should have said she enjoys pigs feet and final consonants.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

lebecka — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:55:08 -0000

Violence that is equivalent to the systematic violence perpetrated on blacks by whites? Me thinks you are deliberately misunderstanding Ace's point here.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

silentbeep — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:52:13 -0000

Mexican public discourse reflects the hostility toward blackness; consider such common phrases as "getting black" to denote getting angry, and "a supper of blacks" to describe a riotous gathering of people. Similarly, the word "black" is often used to mean "ugly." It is not surprising that Mexicans who have been surveyed indicate a disinclination to marry darker-skinned partners"

I'm not sure that is entirely true. Small point here, since racism is racism, and it's ugly no matter what, but this analysis conclusion is not entirely true I think. To be called "indio" or "india" is considered bad as well, if you are very dark and indigenous looking, it can be looked down upon. Not sure if that whole disinclination towards "darker skin" is necessarily about black people, but really about the strange shame going on in Mexican culture about a largely mestizo past & present (Indigenou and European).

In my experience, me and my mother (who a lot of people thought was Eastern European) are considered light skinned and thus, given much flak for it. My father who looked like a full-blooded Zapotec indian, was given much flak for not speaking Spanish, but his skin color was much more acceptable in general because he didn't look "white" Don't know what that's all about, they both grew up in 1950s L.A.

Re: Especially The Blacks And The Latinos

Yinka Wills — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:38:00 -0000

Hmm. The relationship between Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos varies according to whether they are both minorities in a majority white country, or if they are in Central, South America or the Caribbean.

In those countries outside the US, white- or 'perceiving themselves as white' Hispanic/Latino people do the whole oppression thing.

I don't think that black people in, say Brazil, Dominican Republic or Mexico would feel their experiences were more benign than black people in the US.

What is ironic, is that putting the tag 'Latino' on people who are Spanish speaking-but not from Spain- includes a lot of black people from the countries in question.They are often overlooked by the people who assign these categories. And then, there is the fact that one Latino family can include people,blood relatives, who look African and who look European, (e.g Ruben Blades and his Dad)which I'm informed caused problems when arrving in the US and experiencing the 'divide and rule' approach on race and ethnicity...