SAN DIEGO -- In college,
my African-American friends and I used to call it ``the black-brown
thing.'' It's the uneasy tension -- and occasional conflict --
between the nation's largest minority and the group that formerly
held the title.
In the 1990s, the
phenomenon was most prevalent in major cities such as Los Angeles,
New York, Chicago and Miami -- large urban centers where significant
numbers of African-Americans and Latinos lived side by side.
Today, ground zero
is New Orleans, where a lot of African-Americans are no longer
sure they want to live and where a lot more Latinos have gone
to find work.
The fact that there
is a new spice in the gumbo hasn't gotten by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Since Hurricane Katrina struck, the civil rights leader has worried
about the city's changing demographics in a way that brings to
mind how whites used to worry about African-Americans moving into
cities before many of those whites took flight to the suburbs.
During a recent appearance
on CNN's ``Lou Dobbs Tonight," Jackson again complained that,
as New Orleans is being rebuilt, ``outside workers'' are displacing
natives of the city.
(Translation: Latino
immigrants are taking jobs that might otherwise go to African-Americans.)
Jackson was careful
not to frame the issue in terms of illegal immigration despite
prodding from Dobbs, who has spun hysteria over foreigners into
ratings gold. What Jackson did seem eager to talk about, however,
was what was happening now that many Latinos have moved to New
Orleans.
At least he's honest.
It's the one thing that is often at the root of concern over illegal
immigration -- the fact that it changes the landscape of cities,
towns and neighborhoods in ways that many Americans often find
disconcerting. Jackson noted that while New Orleans was 3 percent
Hispanic before Katrina, it is now 20 percent Hispanic.
Jackson said that
he plans a march and a protest on April 1 to demand that native
workers be given priority over foreign ones in the rebuilding
of New Orleans.
A perfect choice
-- April Fool's Day for a foolish idea. The jobs are there for
the taking, and many of them pay well. Yet polls show that large
numbers of the African-Americans who fled New Orleans have no
desire to return. Someone has to do those jobs, and often that
``someone'' is a Latino immigrant who doesn't mind roughing it
in a demolished city that still lacks many basic services. Jackson's
impractical solution is for companies to provide affordable housing
for workers.
The protesters should
scrap the march and have a parade. For grand marshal, I nominate
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who not long ago complained that
Mexican workers were ``overrunning'' New Orleans.
Black leaders are
naturally going to protect their powerbase and preserve their
influence. But as the rhetoric filters down to the workers themselves,
African-Americans might actually buy into this idea that they're
being crowded out by Latinos. In fact, it may have already happened.
According
to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, there
is a new wave of race-discrimination cases showing up at the U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The cases involve African-Americans
who feel they've been passed over for Latinos. What's more, the
agency has actually found for the plaintiffs in a few of these
cases and secured settlements from companies on their behalf.
Even so, I still
have a tough time believing that African-Americans are being held
back by Latinos. And I have an even tougher time drawing comparisons
to what happened in the 1950s and '60s when white employers --
believing that African-Americans were inferior -- rejected black
job applicants in favor of other whites. Is the argument that
the employers of today consider African-Americans inferior to
Latinos?
I prefer the argument
made by an African-American friend with whom I once hosted a radio
show in Los Angeles. Whenever black callers complained about Mexican
immigrants taking jobs, he would jump on their case. ``You have
to aim higher than that," he'd tell them. Instead of fighting
with Latinos for the bad jobs, he would say, you should compete
with whites for the good ones.
He was absolutely
right. Whether you're black, white, brown or purple, life is about
competition and accumulating the skills to withstand it. If you
find yourself in a situation where you're afraid of being forced
out of a job, or beaten out for a job, by a low-skilled, non-English
speaking immigrant with nothing more than a sixth-grade education,
then you have bigger worries than where your next paycheck is
coming from.
©
2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune
