Anti-Latino Racism in New Orleans

While watching ABC News last night, I saw an interesting story about how some blacks in New Orleans are fighting against the Mexican and other Latino workers who are doing most of the clean up work in the city. It showed Mayor Nagin asking how to prevent New Orleans from being overrun by “Mexican workers,” a black leader saying black people should get those jobs instead of Latinos, and a black business owner saying he would only hire blacks, and not Mexicans.

How can these people get away with this outright racism? The news story, while presenting both sides of the labor argument (Latinos saying that they are the only ones around to fill the jobs and blacks saying the jobs should belong to them – although they failed to say what is preventing them from actually getting them), the underlying racism expressed by the black community in that report went unaddressed.

If a white mayor would have said he didn’t want his city overrun by Mexican or black workers, he would be crucified in the media (at least most white people couch their opposition to migrant labor as being opposed to “illegal” immigration, as opposed to Mexicans). If a white community leader would have said that white people jobs instead of giving them to Latinos or blacks, he would be vilified. And if a white contractor would have said he was only going to hire white people, he would be fined. Why does this sort of anti-Latino racism get a pass?

Are they saying “Mexican”, “Latino”, or “illegal immigrant”?

If the latter–that’s why.

They were quite explicit in saying Mexican and they were not distinguishing between legal Latinos and illegal workers. The story was basically a story of blacks in New Orleans upset that Latinos were filling jobs that the black community felt belonged to them.

Interesting, no? I will say that there is a lot of, um, tension, between the black community and the hispanic community here in the states…especially at the poorer levels and especially FROM the black community TOWARDS the hispanic community. My evidence? It would all be anecdotal so I won’t give it. I’ve also noticed (when I lived on the East Coast…shudder) that there was similar tension between the Black community and some of the Korean enclaves in the inner cities. There was a lot of veiled (and thinly at that) racism towards Koreans by Blacks because of the perception that the Koreans were taking all the jobs.

This tension between the Black community and Hispanic is only going to get worse unless the Blacks (and admittedly the Hispanics) get a grip on it. Hispanics are the fastest growing minority and they WILL be the largest minority in this country…soon. In addition, as imigrants a lot of them are hard working (I know the sterio type of the Lazy Mexican…the reality is something very different) and willing to take the hard jobs no one wants for less pay. Like my own father, even working below minimum wage for long hours is better than things are in Mexico…by a long margin.

As to your question of ‘how do they get away with it’…well, I’ll leave that for others to try and justify for now. Should be interesting to see the response.

-XT

The problem is they all get lumped in together. Now, if the good folks of NO say they won’t give jobs to any non-citizens, then well and good. Personally I think thats kind of stupid but I could see their point. However, if they don’t want folks who look ‘Mexican’ or ‘Latino’, and automatically assume because of their looks/accent that they are ‘illegal immigrants’ based on those looks and deny them jobs because of that…well, there is a term for such things in the US. Isn’t there?

-XT

I saw the ABC segment in question and was appalled that Mayor Nagin would say such a thing. The “Mexican” workers in New Orleans are not sneaking across the border to steal jobs from hard-working Americans. They are American residents themselves and as such have just as much a right to help rebuild New Orleans as anyone else. And I hope the guy who said that he would only hire black workers gets his ass sued by the EEOC pronto.

I’m a bit surprised at the lack of interest in this thread. :frowning:

-XT

I’m not.

Oh, the cynicism! Inconceivable that someone could actually be opposed to illegal (no sarcastic quotation marks, please) immigration without having a secret racist agenda.

Actually, they’re already the largest minority – they passed that benchmark a few years back. And if I remember correctly, the African-American proportion of the population is actually shrinking somewhat. The Lazy Mexican stereotype is way off the mark – the ones I’ve known have often worked incredibly hard, often at two or even three jobs.

Black racism is really nothing new. A lot of people turned a blind eye to black racism against whites because of the understandable history involved. But the tensions between the black and Asian communities have also been around for a long time (I’ve heard lots of stories from Asian friends, but like xtisme, it’s anecdotal, so maybe better left unsaid).

I did not see the ABC piece in question, but if it’s as blatantly racist as stated, I hope the relevant pressure groups (the ACLU?) and the media will call a spade a spade and denounce the racism for what it is. If New Orleans businesses don’t want to hire illegal immigrants to clean up the city, they have every right not to…in fact they have to right TO hire them. But they have no right to discriminate against legal workers of any race.

Make that no right, not “to” right.