Blacks and Latinos: Understanding and Resolving Racial Conflict
Edward Negrete, Jr. Ed.D, CSU-Los Angeles, and Susan Shimizu Taira, Ph.D., Taira & Associates, Los Angeles

NOTE:  This is a condensed version of an article published in the Journal of Policy and Politics (Spring 1995).

There was a time when Blacks and Latinos were neighbors and natural allies.  Certainly that was true in the Watts of the '40s when the Latino community surrounded a church, and the small community of Blacks lived harmoniously with them.  In subsequent years, the Black population increased substantially until Watts was considered a Black neighborhood.  More recently Latinos, many of them first generation immigrants, settled in Watts and have become numerically the larger group.

In the 1990's relationships between Blacks and Latinos are strained and rife with tension.  These conflicts in the social, economic, education, and political arenas have created a competitive mindset - fighting for the same small piece of the American pie.  In many instances, the polarization of Blacks and Latinos caused increased violence in the schools, tension in the workplace over jobs and workers' rights, strife in racially mixed housing complexes, deadly gang activities claiming innocent victims, and power struggles among the leadership of both racial groups. 

One force impacting the relationship between Latinos and Blacks has been the significant demographic changes at the national, state and local levels in the last 20 years.  Most notably, these demographic shifts have seen marked increases in the Latino population in the United States, California and, in particular, the City and County of Los Angeles.  In California for example, the Latino population increased by 69% from 1970 to 1990.  By contrast, analysis of Black demographics indicates only gradual increases. 

How to change the present climate and create a harmonious environment will undoubtedly be the challenge of the '90s for both Black and Latino leaders.   Common ground can be found by focusing on the systemic causes and society's refusal to accept responsibility for generational poverty and oppression experienced by Blacks and Latinos in this country.  The people who should be involved in constructive strategies are those affected daily by the structural inequality and institutionalized racism present in our American System.

There are collaborations, grass roots and institutional, that have taken form and brought together multiracial groups around a purpose in vision.  Certainly in Watts, the Bridges Program is an example of people trying to develop sustainable mechanisms for teaching and engaging people in an organizing effort to address problems that are present in public housing projects and in schools.  They also have found space to collaborate around identifying real job opportunities for Black and Latino youth.  Another example is the struggle of the Sidewalk Vendors who are predominantly Latino to develop concrete strategies on how to get the Black Council members' support.  In the process they worked with Black community members, learned lessons in political deal making; and through collective action they discovered that something positive can happen.  The Community Coalition brings together the Black and Latino communities for common purposes and stresses the action and the work accomplished jointly.  The school district has brought together a multiracial group to develop the New Majority 2000 - Empowerment for Social Change to grapple with what it would be like to live in a true multicultural society.

Intergroup conflict resolution requires a multicultural approach, one which recognizes that the people's cultural qualities are advantages which add value to the conflict resolution process.  A multicultural approach keeps in focus the social, political, and economic context within which groups survive.  This approach is will examine power issues and create structures of equality for all people.  A multicultural approach will maximize space for communication, explore and analyze deep rooted social conflict, and motivate parties to work together for constructive, planned social, economic and political changes.