Race Relations Browns vs. Blacks

Bitter divisions are breaking out between the nation's two largest minorities. Once solidly united in the drive for equality, blacks and Hispanics are now often at odds over such issues as jobs, immigration and political empowerment. At the root of the quarrels is a seismic demographic change: early in the next century, Hispanics will outnumber African Americans for the first time.

Though the differences were long submerged, they burst into the open last year just before the annual awards dinner of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in Washington. Instead of easy talk between old friends, an angry argument erupted. Contending that immigration laws discriminate against Latino workers, Hispanics asked the group to support repeal of the legislation. At first blacks refused, charging that Latino immigrants take jobs away from poor blacks. Furious, Hispanics threatened to storm out in protest. Only eleventh- hour diplomacy by Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, coaxed the Latinos back to the table.

As their numbers have grown, Hispanics have become more strident in their demands for a larger slice of the economic and political pie. Blacks, long accustomed to being the senior partner in the minority coalition, fear that those gains will come at their expense. Meanwhile, demagogues on both sides have pitted black against brown in a bid for short-term political advantage. Says Arthur Fletcher, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: "On a scale of 1 to 10, I would put Latino-black relations on the negative side of 5."

Increasingly, these long-simmering tensions are flaring into violence, especially in cities where one of the groups has a monopoly on political power. Last May, Hispanics in black-controlled Washington went on a two-day rampage after a Latino man was wounded by a black police officer. In Cuban- dominated Miami four weeks ago, blacks briefly rioted following the overturn of the conviction of a Hispanic police officer for killing two black motorcyclists. It was the sixth such disturbance in 10 years.

Underlying the disputes is a growing divergence of the interests of the two groups, reinforced by mutual suspicion. Black and Hispanic leaders, says Alejandro Portes, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, "see everything as a zero-sum game. If blacks get something, Latinos lose something, and vice versa." Many African Americans believe that Latinos are benefiting from civil rights victories won by blacks with little help from Hispanics. Says Fletcher: "During the height of the civil rights movement, Hispanics were conspicuous by their absence. They kept asking, 'What about us?' But rather than joining us in fighting the system, Hispanics were fighting us for the crumbs. And that in large part is still what's going on."