Thread: Ruben Navarette: Black-brown friction waste of energy

WARNING!: Ruben Navarette Alert!!!

Commentary: Black-brown friction waste of energy

Columnist: Latinos don't pay respect to blacks' unique place in U.S. history

African-Americans think Latinos trying to take their jobs, Ruben Navarrette says

Navarrette: Neither group has to elbow each other aside to get ahead

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

Hispanics have overtaken African-Americans as the nation's largest minority. Join columnist Ruben Navarrette and CNN contributor Roland Martin on CNN.com Live Video at 12:30 p.m. ET Wednesday when they will discuss this issue and some of your "Sound Off" comments.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Welcome to the black-brown thing. That's what my African-American friends and I called it back in college. It's shorthand for the uneasy relationship between the nation's largest minority and the group that formerly held the title.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.: It's dumb for African-Americans and Latinos to fight with each other.

In college, Latinos and African-Americans got along well. Ours was a small and prestigious school in the Northeast where neither group was in large supply.

As I walked through campus, if I passed a black classmate -- even one I didn't know -- he'd acknowledge me with a smile and a nod. And I'd do the same.

These days, the groups trade elbows. It's wasted energy. I like a good fight as much as the next columnist, but I won't fight for crumbs with people who -- like my own -- had to scratch and claw for everything they have, only to be told that they don't deserve it.

My first experience with the friction between blacks and browns came in 1994. I was co-hosting a daily talk show for ABC Radio in Los Angeles with Tavis Smiley, an African-American who is now a nationally known media personality and the host of a nightly talk show on PBS.

Since we were both in our 20s, we were supposed to talk about the issues from a young perspective. But this being Los Angeles, and one of the issues being immigration, the show disintegrated into black-brown conflict.

I heard plenty of racist comments -- and most of them came from self-identified black callers and were aimed at Latinos. It's not that Latinos can't be racist toward blacks. They can be. But, with Latinos under siege in the immigration debate, maybe they were too busy defending themselves to take shots at African-Americans.

In 2001, while I was writing for the Dallas Morning News, a videotape surfaced showing African-American City Council candidate Dwayne Caraway delivering a warning to black business leaders: "You better wake up and look at your next-door neighbor," Caraway told the audience. "Because now, your next-door neighbor is Hispanic. And they're moving in. And they're taking over. And they're pushing us out."

When Caraway did well enough in the primary election to earn a spot in a runoff (which he lost), I wrote a column lamenting that the candidate found a market for his fear mongering and noting that the same was true for George Wallace.

Today, one of the battlegrounds is New Orleans, where -- in October 2005, or two months after Hurricane Katrina -- Mayor Ray Nagin complained to a business group that his once predominantly black city was being "overrun by Mexican workers."

Could that have had anything to do with the fact that, for months after Katrina, many African-Americans weren't interested in moving back to New Orleans, let alone in doing the tough, dirty and low-paying jobs that Latino immigrants did to rebuild the city?

Ah yes, immigration. African-Americans are frustrated because they think they're losing jobs to illegal immigrants. Latinos are frustrated that African-Americans -- of all people -- can't detect the racism that poisons this debate.

We got a taste of that recently when black radio talk-show host Warren Ballentine, appearing on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," warned that if we didn't stop illegal immigration, America's children would one day "be speaking Spanish."

Latinos make the mistake of not paying respect to the unique place that African-Americans occupy in this country and its history. African-Americans make the mistake of assuming that Latinos want to take their slice of pie, when Latinos just want a slice of their own.

It's dumb to think of the American consciousness as a finite commodity, where -- in order for one group to earn recognition -- another has to head to the back of the line.

That's pretty much what another black radio talk-show host -- Joe Madison -- said Tuesday on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" when he accused Democrats of being so eager to court Latino voters that they've banished blacks to a "lower tier."

Please. Or, as they say in the new America, por favor.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist. You can read his column here.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/03/navarrette/

Well gee RUBY, why do you think this is? Could it be the latino gangs have basically declared war on black dominant neighborhoods?

What an idiot.
Why do we keep wasting web space with rub's crap?

Sure there were some Blacks, perhaps many, who didn't return to New Orleans, but what about the Black and some White workers who tried to rebuild New Orleans, and then perhaps worked for a couple of days, only to be dismissed when the Mexicans "showed-up"?

Ostrich

[quote="zeezil
Please. Or, as they say in the new America, por favor.[/quote]


Please is what we say in America. There is no "new" America and there never will be. You want to see something "new" try Mexico. They could really use a make-over.

Mr. Navarette is just attempting to increase the friction to Brown-Black-White so he can scream racism. So "please" stop pushing buttons and be a good American by encouraging illegals to return to their homelands. Put down the spoon and stop stirring the pot. Please.

for months after Katrina, many African-Americans weren't interested in moving back to New Orleans, let alone in doing the tough, dirty and low-paying jobs that Latino immigrants did to rebuild the city?

Well, African-Americans would have done the work if they were paid decently and not exploited by unscrupulous contractors.

What jobless man would turn down a job funded by the gov't that guaranteed top pay? The prevailing wage was like $32hr and many Blacks worked those jobs until they were told "...the Mexicans are here..." What happened was the contractors knew they could pay a lot less for the work, and charge the gov't the full amount - no rocket science involved in that. This writer fails to mention the negative way Blacks are treated in Latin countries, and since the vast majority of illegals are uneducated and haven't been exposed to other cultures so they bring that way of thinking with them here. Blacks and Latinos have always gotten along famously, so why don't you see Blacks working alongside Latinos at construction sites? Why don't you see Latino leaders inviting Black leaders to offer input and/or advice in regards to their "movement"? Methinks it's because Latinos feel they are above Blacks. I'm waiting to see how long it takes for Blacks to figure out Al and the gang have sold them out.

America may be new to you Ruben but it is over 300 years old to alot us, many of our family's have been here that long, so let it go, that PC as you consider it will not work, To us it is the United States of America!!!! and the languge is English!!!

Rubish.

There were Black and White people from New Orleans that wanted to rebuild THEIR city. I have mentioned this a few times before, but I was watching Fox News around the time the clean up was to start. There was a woman from an employment agency who had set up a bunch of Americans to work. The day before the Americans were set to clean-up/rebuild she received a call and was told not to bother sending her workers as "The Mexicans were coming". These were her exact words and I almost fell off the couch.

It is disgusting how the whole New Orleans situation was handled. We should have made sure that residents were the ones rebuilding not ILLEGAL ALIENS. What a disgrace.

I thought all the politicians from both sides were running around after Katrina and saying it would be locals who were going to rebuild. Another lie. Now New Orleans has a growing and huge illegal problem-what about the Americans who have always lived there-what happens to them? It is bad enough that New Orleans was changed forever due to a natural disaster but now because of greedy companies who want to hire cheap labor and a lack of immigration law enforcement, this city's character is going to be changed-and in my opinion-not for the better.

Originally Posted by Nicole

Rubish.

There were Black and White people from New Orleans that wanted to rebuild THEIR city. I have mentioned this a few times before, but I was watching Fox News around the time the clean up was to start. There was a woman from an employment agency who had set up a bunch of Americans to work. The day before the Americans were set to clean-up/rebuild she received a call and was told not to bother sending her workers as "The Mexicans were coming". These were her exact words and I almost fell off the couch.

It is disgusting how the whole New Orleans situation was handled. We should have made sure that residents were the ones rebuilding not ILLEGAL ALIENS. What a disgrace.

I thought all the politicians from both sides were running around after Katrina and saying it would be locals who were going to rebuild. Another lie. Now New Orleans has a growing and huge illegal problem-what about the Americans who have always lived there-what happens to them? It is bad enough that New Orleans was changed forever due to a natural disaster but now because of greedy companies who want to hire cheap labor and a lack of immigration law enforcement, this city's character is going to be changed-and in my opinion-not for the better.

I wonder if New Orleans is going to be the Los Angeles of the South.