NY Times Examines Black-Hispanic Divide in South

This week, an article in the New York Times examines the increasingly prevalent conflicts between Southern blacks and Hispanic immigrants. The article focuses on two ministers in South Georgia who have used their faith to overcome social differences.

Blacks here, who had settled into a familiar, if sometimes uneasy, relationship with whites, are now outnumbered by Hispanics. The two groups, who often live and work side by side, compete fiercely for working-class jobs and government resources. By several measures, blacks are already losing ground.

The jobless rate for black men in Georgia is nearly triple that of Hispanic men, labor statistics show. More blacks than Hispanics fail to meet minimum standards in Atkinson County public schools. And many blacks express anguish at being supplanted by immigrants who know little of their history and sometimes treat them with disdain as they fill factory jobs, buy property, open small businesses and scale the economic ladder.

While the article is encouraging in its story of tolerance and cooperation, the region has only just begun to deal with the racial divide created by Hispanic immigrants.

School administrators and sociologists suggest that the gap between blacks and Hispanics in employment and education may stem in part from immigrant parents who push their children harder to succeed in schools and the immigrant zeal to find work, regardless of how much it pays.

Many black adults, who typically have more formal education than new immigrants, seethe at the disparities. In a town where neighborliness is entrenched, blacks and Hispanics often treat one another warily.

Nonetheless, the two men see an avenue for understanding through common experience and faith.

“I believe that rather than be angry or envy those who have came to America and found success, we ought to be learning from them,” Mr. Williams wrote.

As the ministers meandered through their changing neighborhoods one afternoon, they considered taking their friendship to another level by preaching a joint service for their congregations. Though they knew it might never happen, they envisioned Spanish speakers and English speakers, newcomers and long timers’ holding hands and praying beneath the oak trees.