December 13, 2007

Issues divide ethnic groups

By Brian DeBose

Blacks, Hispanics and Asians have deep divisions and disagreements about equal opportunity, impartial criminal justice and the American dream, according to a new poll by New America Media.

But the data showing deep divisions among the three largest U.S. minority groups was offset by evidence that the groups also see themselves as having a shared destiny and view one another in some positive lights also.

California-based New America Media, a national collaboration of ethnic news organizations under the nonprofit Pacific News Service, funded the study, which found that many ethnic minorities hold to negative stereotypes about each other. For example, 44 percent of Hispanic respondents and 47 percent of Asians answered yes to a question about whether they were "generally afraid of African-Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime."

Meanwhile, 46 percent of Hispanics and 52 percent of blacks responded yes to whether "most Asian business owners do not treat them with respect." And 51 percent of blacks said they agreed that "Latin American immigrants are taking away jobs, housing and political power from the black community."

The groups also differ in their opinions of broader U.S. society, with 74 percent of Hispanics and 64 percent of Asians strongly agreeing with the statement that "if you work hard, you will succeed in the United States," against only 44 percent of blacks. Meanwhile, a comfortable majority of blacks — 71 percent — strongly agreed that "the criminal justice system in the United States favors the rich and powerful," against 45 percent of Hispanics and 27 percent of Asians.

Moreover, the three groups trust whites more than the other two minority groups. The poll found that 61 percent of Hispanics, 54 percent of Asians and 47 percent of blacks would prefer to do business with whites than the other two groups. In all three cases, most of those who didn't specify whites said they had no preference.

The multilingual phone poll of 1,105 blacks and various Asian and Hispanic national groups was conducted in August and September. Respondents all lived in areas where their minority group made up at least 10 percent of the population. The margin of error was five percentage points.

Still, there was common ground between the three groups on other issues, and not all the opinions widely held about the other two groups were negative ones.

In response to a question of whether Hispanic culture — its foods, music, family values and traditions — has enriched the quality of life for Americans, 58 percent of blacks and 67 percent of Asians said yes. When it came to civil rights, 73 percent of Hispanics and 65 percent of Asians agreed that they were better off because blacks led the fight against discrimination in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, 92 percent of Hispanics, 89 percent of blacks and 86 percent of Asians said they should all put aside their differences and work together to solve problems affecting their communities, and a substantial majority of all groups agreed that America would be better if more ethnic minorities of all types held positions of power and prominence.

Miami-based pollster Sergio Bendixen said the divisions based on conjecture and innuendo have existed for decades in all three communities, leading to ethnic tensions that must be dissolved. He said talking about the problem openly and continuously with government and community leaders is the first step.

"Leadership can do very much to bring communities together, if they are honestly made aware of the problem," Mr. Bendixen said.

"But nobody wants to talk about this. Nobody wants to deal with it. They just want to sweep it under the rug, so without that dialogue and outreach there can be no leadership response."

Mr. Bendixen also said that in many cases "civic and political leaders don't want to address this because they say it's too hard or it threatens their political capital."

Richard Rodriguez, an author and essayist on race relations in America, said in some ways the Hispanic leadership has exacerbated the problem.

"What troubles me is that the Hispanic leadership has embraced a false flattery from the federal government that we are going to overtake blacks as the largest minority, and that automatically pits us against each other," he said.

He said the Census Bureau's use of Hispanic as a parallel to racial classifications distorts much, because Hispanic culture does not follow America's historic distinctions, which have always been defined as black and white, with the British as the most authentically white. For example, when Hungarian, Italian, Irish and other European immigrants first came to America, there was some debate about whether they were white.

"The way those groups proved that they were white is by showing whites they weren't black, often times through violence and cruelty towards blacks," Mr. Rodriguez said. "There is some fear by the black community that Hispanics will do the same."