Will the Trayvon Martin shooting open a dialogue about race relations between Hispanics and Blacks?
This is an issue that has long been just below the surface of American culture, and this tragedy should bring it out of the shadows. George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, shot and killed Trayvon Martin, who is Black. Many people believe that Zimmerman was motivated by racism, and that he should be charged with a hate crime for killing Martin. Relations between Blacks and Hispanics have at times been strained, and things could potentially get worse as the Hispanic population in America continues to grow.
http://www.economist.com/node/9587776
Last year Pew, a pollster, found that one-third of blacks believe immigrants take jobs from Americans—more than any other group. Yet in some ways their views were benign. Blacks are less likely than whites or even Hispanics to believe that immigrants end up on welfare or commit crimes. Latinos, on the other hand, appear to make no such concessions. One survey of Durham, in North Carolina, found that 59% of Latinos believed few or almost no blacks were hard-working, and a similar proportion reckoned few or almost none could be trusted. Fewer than one in ten whites felt the same way.
So far, rivalry between blacks and Hispanics has been a mostly working-class affair. But Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who is writing a book on black-Latino relations, reckons that is likely to change. Latinos are already so entrenched in some manual trades that it is hard to see how they can become more dominant. In construction, for example, they account for a quarter of the national workforce and outnumber blacks almost five to one. The next citadels to be stormed will be white-collar, largely female preserves such as public administration, education and health.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/713/blacks-hispanics
While blacks and Hispanics hold broadly favorable views of each other, Hispanics are less likely to say the two groups get along well. At the same time, African Americans are far more likely than Latinos to say blacks are frequently the victims of racial discrimination, according to a recent survey of racial and ethnic attitudes by the Pew Research Center.
The country's two largest and most powerful minority groups also disagree on other issues that strike close to the heart of many blacks and Hispanics, though these differences are generally modest. Notably, blacks are more likely to say the situation for African Americans is worse today than it was five or even 10 years ago. Nearly half of all blacks also say immigrants reduce job opportunities for blacks, while fewer than four-in-10 Hispanics agree.
But some differences begin to emerge when blacks and Hispanics are asked how well the two groups get along. A majority of blacks (70%), but a smaller share of Hispanics (57%), say the groups get along very or fairly well. At the same time, Hispanics are significantly more likely than blacks to say that inter-group relations are strained (30% vs. 18%). Whites are roughly equally divided, with nearly four-in-10 (39%) saying that blacks and Hispanics get along well, 32% saying they do not, while nearly as many express no opinion.
This "perception gap" on inter-group relations persists even when controlling for socio-economic status. For example, 63% of all better-educated Hispanics -- those who had attended college -- say blacks and Latinos get along well, compared with 73% of similarly educated blacks. That's a 10-point difference -- little different than the overall 13-point gap between the two groups. Similar differences emerge in most age and income categories as well.
http://www.dailypress.com/bv-hispanics010320,0,4967522.story
In a region where race relations traditionally have been defined in terms of Black and White, an influx of immigrants to the Deep South in the last decade has upset the delicate cultural balance and created tensions among longtime residents and new ethnic groups. The changing demographics have forced the South to again confront its prejudices as it becomes home to unfamiliar cultures. This time, however, the resistance has come not only from whites, but the region's largest minority group, African-Americans.
In Georgia, Black legislators recently defeated a bill supported by the governor to broaden the state's "minority" designation to include Hispanics. The bill would have allowed Hispanics, whose population in Georgia increased by at least 120 percent since 1990, to be included in tax breaks for companies that hire minority contractors.
The fight focused attention on the mounting tension between Blacks and Hispanics, who rival African-Americans as the largest minority group in the U.S.
"We were not comfortable amending laws that originally were passed to aid racial minorities, such as African-Americans and Native Americans, who have a long history of being discriminated against," said Rep. Bob Holmes, a member of the state's Legislative Black Caucus. "There is growing competition between Blacks and Hispanics, and in the South, it is going to get worse. We know that they have escaped from poverty and we want them to have a better life here, but not at the expense of African-Americans."
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