http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back207.html
Center for Immigration Studies
February 2007
Immigration, Intergroup Conflict, and
the Erosion of African American Political Power in the 21st Century
Frank Morris and James G. Gimpel:
* While social scientists continue to debate the impact of
large-scale immigration on low-skilled American natives, these
same Americans certainly believe that high levels of
immigration threaten their economic well-being. Current
research shows that these fears are as much alive among African
Americans as Caucasians.
* Conflict between African Americans and Latina/os for group
position, status, and political power is increasing as most
immigrants of Hispanic ancestry settle in areas proximate to
African American populations in the nations largest cities.
* African American gains in office-holding appear to be leveling
off at higher levels of office, while Latino gains are rapidly
rising. These gains are coming at the expense of non-Hispanic
white office-holders and African Americans, though African
Americans are more threatened given their smaller overall
numbers.
* Steadily rising immigrant populations will continue to change
the racial complexion of U.S. House representation in a number
of California, Texas, and New York congressional districts
within the next 20 years.
* With the 2010 census redistricting, just a few years away, as
many as six seats currently held by members of the
Congressional Black Caucus could be given up to Latino
candidates.
A new awareness has dawned on observers of ethnic and racial
politics in America. As the immigrant population has dramatically
increased over the past 40 years, the prospect that these new
arrivals may compete with subsets of American natives for jobs,
housing, positional status, and political representation has become
a reality. Recent studies have begun to document, in rising levels
of detail, the tension that has emerged between immigrant groups
and lower-skilled American natives, a high proportion of whom are
African American (Gay, forthcoming; McClain et al. 2006; Kim 2000;
Vaca 2004; Hirschman, Kasinitz and DeWind 1999).
Up to very recently, it has been considered politically incorrect,
or at least impolite, to suggest that minority groups within
American society may not get along well or actually wind up in
not-so-friendly competition for scarce resources. The wishful
thoughts of those who imagine a blissful rainbow coalition have
politicized discussions of interethnic relations, pushing out
warnings about the crowding taking place on the lower rungs of the
nations socioeconomic ladder.
This disdain for public discussion of a now painfully evident
reality seems odd given that interethnic conflict has had such a
ubiquitous presence throughout U.S. history. One need not have
taken a college history course to recognize that immigration and
immigrant-native conflict are not merely 21^st century phenomena. A
serious body of academic research suggests that periods of peaceful
interethnic relations in the United States may stand out as
exceptions rather than the rule (Billington 1963; Olzak 1992;
Shanahan and Olzak 1999; Olzak and Shanahan 2003). But the
consequences of the ongoing demographic transformation cannot be
ignored forever, and a mounting body of research has broken through
the multicultural wall of silence to sound alarm bells that the
nations new diversity is not being embraced in all corners.
In this essay, we survey the recent literature on interethnic
competition and evaluate its sources and consequences. The rising
immigrant tide is especially detrimental to the employment
prospects and income levels of natives who occupy the lower rungs
on the socioeconomic ladder, a large share of whom are African
American. While reservations about immigration are clearly
traceable to the economic insecurity among lower-skilled and
less-experienced workers, this is by no means the only source of
unease. Rival ethnic groups also compete for social status, and for
political power. In the latter half of this essay, we examine the
implications of the rapid rise in the immigrant population for the
political representation and influence of African Americans. We
conclude with some observations about the durability and future of
multi-minority political coalitions.
Competition for Economic Goods
Economic competition among ethnic groups has long been considered
an explanation for intergroup tension and racial antagonism
(Bonacich 1972; 1976; Forbes 1997; Cummings 1977; 1980; Cummings
and Lambert 1997; Olzak 1989; 1992). Such discord might be avoided
except that the competition among low-skilled and unskilled
laborers in the American economy seems to have all of the qualities
of a zero-sum game. The only-one-winner characteristic of this
particular marketplace is, in part, the result of where the
competition takes place relative to where employment is most
readily available. This is the so-called mismatch between the
geography of the low-skill workforce and the geography of
employment (Holzer 1996). Urban areas in the United States have not
been known for having a surplus of jobs for low-skilled workers
since the middle of the 20^th century. And yet in 2000, 65 percent
of California=s foreign-born population was packed into the state=s
five most urban counties, compared with just 51 percent of the
native-born. The figures for Texas indicate a more dispersed
immigrant population, but only slightly so: 58 percent lived in
that state=s five largest counties, compared with 42 percent of
native-born Texans. New York=s immigrant population, concentrated
in the five borough counties and Long Island, is even more densely
concentrated than that of either California or Texas: 73 percent of
the foreign-born live in the city, compared with just 41 percent of
the native-born.
To be sure, Latinos, Asians, and other groups of more recent
immigrant ancestry are also showing a remarkable capacity to settle
in locations other than the traditional immigrant ports of entry
(Logan 2001; Suro and Singer 2002). While Latinos are still highly
segregated from Anglo-whites in suburbia, and show nothing like
white levels of residential mobility and income growth, they are
better able to sidestep the residential isolation that impedes
African American prosperity. When asked by survey researchers,
Asians and Latinos are more likely than native-born African
Americans to report that they have the same opportunities as whites
(Chong and Kim 2006, 340). Most of the natives that are trapped in
the worst big-city labor markets are African American. The
instrument of their isolation is, in part, sustained high levels of
immigration into adjoining areas, and to areas exhibiting
employment growth in the low-skill labor market where employers
commonly show a preference for immigrants over African Americans.
The sustained flow of immigrants directly into or adjacent to
hard-pressed, historically African American locales raises
questions about whether competition between groups for scarce
resources erupts into frustration, violence (Baldassare 1994), or
at the very least, feelings of contempt for rival groups (Kaufmann
2006).
Given the poverty and unemployment of many big-city neighborhoods,
there is every reason to believe that the pressures caused by
sustained high levels of immigration might lead to social strains
within a community. Particularly at the bottom rungs of the social
and economic hierarchy, one might expect that competition between
immigrants and the native-born, as well as among rival immigrant
groups, might produce resentment, higher levels of social disorder
(Johnson, Farrell and Guinn 1999), psychological stress, and even
higher levels of mortality (LeClere, Rogers and Peters 1997). More
generally, we live in an era of weak political institutions that
hardly provide the social control functions provided during the
last great immigrant influx (Janowitz 1978). While today=s service
bureaucracies are capable of controlling outputs, they lack the
communal ties that afforded local political party organizations
early in the last century the capacity to shape both inputs and
outputs.
Interethnic competition for economic goods predates the U.S. Civil
War. Irish and African American relations have been noted as
especially conflicted, since the Irish arrived in large numbers,
and were as uneducated and unskilled as free African Americans
(Diamond 1998). Many historians have noted that hostility among
ethnic groups in the 1840s and 1850s was the result of competitive
pressures put on natives by the emergence of lower-cost labor
(Ernst 1948; Billington 1963).
During Reconstruction, African American skilled workers and
semi-skilled African American laborers were replaced by immigrants
whenever there was an increase in their supply. The African
American labor supply was preferred only when (white) immigrant
labor was cut off (such as during World War I) and during the
period of restrictive immigration quotas from the 1920s to the mid
1960s.
Recently accumulated evidence suggests that the Great Black
Migration from the South to northern cities, a development that
greatly advanced African American economic progress, would have
occurred decades earlier had immigration restrictions been in place
(Collins 1997). African Americans moved at times and to places
where the foreign-born were less prominent (Collins 1997, 629;
Drake and Cayton 1962). Labor market competition resulting from
generous immigration is also said to have resulted in displaced
hostility toward African Americans in the late 19^th century,
because they possessed less power to fight back (Olzak 1989).
In more recent years, low-skilled and uneducated whites have been
found to express the most virulent racism because of the glut of
unskilled immigrant and African American workers thought to be
ready to take their jobs (Cummings 1977; 1980). Intergroup
hostility, by these accounts, may well be an expression of
self-interested calculations anchored in perceived economic
vulnerability.
Mounting evidence points to the economic dislocation of African
Americans resulting from high levels of mass immigration (Borjas
1998, 2001; Stevans 1998; Johnson and Oliver 1989; Bluestone and
Stevenson 2000). To be sure, the
average impact of immigration on an entire population may be
slight, as many of the traditional econometric analyses have
indicated, but the community or sectoral effects may still be
considerable. Even if we grant the controversial contention that
mass immigration is a net economic benefit to the society, the
costs are borne disproportionately by those at lower socioeconomic
strata, particularly African American men, while the benefits
accrue at the top of the socioeconomic and racial hierarchy (Borjas
2001).
When asked, many African Americans in the nations largest cities
marvel at the capacity of immigrants to open stores in
majority-African American neighborhoods. Immigrants are able to
pool capital and secure financing in ways that baffle outsiders,
leading respected African American leader Andrew Young to remark
recently that very few mom-and-pop stores in African American
ghettoes were actually owned by African Americans, but instead
owned by price-gouging Korean and Arab immigrants. He was derided
for being insensitive, but his remarks contained an undeniable
kernel of truth discussed in much of the social scientific
literature (Baldassare 1994; Kim 2000; Kim 1999). Throughout U.S.
history, many African American activists and scholars such as
Fredrick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus
Garvey, A. Phillip Randolph, and even Mexican American labor leader
Cesar Chavez, have implored American economic elites not to turn
overwhelmingly to immigrant labor to keep wages low and displace
American-born workers. Their pleas usually went unheeded, but
contemporary African American political leaders now take policy
positions out-of-step with the past political leadership that
unashamedly spoke out for reduced immigration. When African
American leaders, such as Young, do speak up, they generate a
firestorm of controversy.
The understandable conclusion drawn by many African Americans from
their commonplace observations of immigrant upward mobility is that
American society continues to prefer immigrants to native-born
African Americans, as it has in decades past. If the door to
immigration were not so wide open, African Americans might be able
to access capital and financing and open these stores themselves.
Other employment sectors aside from retail trade may be more open
to African Americans were it not for the fact that these niches in
the labor force have been monopolized by immigrant labor (Waldinger
2001). As it stands, the pay level for many of these jobs is so
low, few natives are willing to apply, much less work them. Little
wonder that African American attitudes display remarkable
ambivalence toward immigrants, and vice versa.
Finally, while economists may continue to debate various economic
indicators to evaluate whether the low-skill labor market really is
a zero-sum game (for a summary see Lim 2001), students of public
opinion have shown that minorities
believe that as one group gains, another loses, and that one groups
misfortune becomes anothers opportunity (Gay, forthcoming; Ha and
Oliver 2006; Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Nelson and Perez-Monforti
2006). Unskilled natives may worry that the influx of immigrants
may be injurious to their livelihood, even if the reality is more
complex. Workers evaluate immigration policy in accord with their
position in the labor force (Scheve and Slaughter 2001, 133). Data
analyses originating from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality
(Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Detroit) indicate that African
American respondents perceive themselves to be in a battle with
Asians and Latinos for economic opportunity (Kaufmann 2006). More
than two-thirds of African Americans perceived themselves to be in
a zero-sum competition with Asians in Los Angeles, and 61 percent
reported that Latinos are zero-sum competitors. The figures for
other cities were less lopsided, but still large enough to suggest
that the level of perceived threat could drive antagonism and
divide these populations against one another.
Competition for Status and Political Position
Groups also compete for political and social status, not just for
limited economic goods such as jobs or housing. Certainly, the
relevant academic literature examines ethnic competition and
conflict over noneconomic goods status, positional goods,
recognition, and community symbols. One of the foremost students of
ethnic conflict in Asia and Africa argues that it cannot be
adequately explained at least in those contexts simply in terms of
economic factors (Horowitz 1985). A similar emphasis on the
noneconomic sources of intergroup conflict is found in the
extensive literature on status conflict in the United States
(Blumer 1958; Bobo and Hutchings 1996). An important theme of this
work is that status conflicts arise during periods of economic
growth and prosperity, when the upward mobility of emergent groups
causes social strains between them and previously established
groups (Lipset and Raab 1973; Cain and Kiewiet 1986; Hofstadter
1979). Thus, it was only after attaining economic gains beginning
in the post-Civil War era that Jews in America sought commensurate
status recognition and then began to experience social
discrimination (Higham 1975, 138-173).
Economic competition may not be the only source of prejudicial
attitudes frequently residential proximity is quite enough (Blalock
1956). In his thorough literature review, Forbes (1997) found at
least 21 quantitative studies that backed up V.O. Key
=s (1949) contention that negative attitudes toward African
Americans on the part of whites were strongly and consistently
associated with the concentration of African Americans in their
communities (p. 101). This line of research suggests that group
size is threatening, not economic competition, per se. Whites may
not fear that African Americans or immigrants will take their jobs,
but they might fear the potential political power that accrues with
numbers.
The recent research of Paula McClain (2006) and her colleagues
underscores the fact that recent immigrants regularly express
contemptuous attitudes toward native-born African Americans, and
that these are most likely attitudes brought with them rather than
acquired in the United States. Interestingly, this prejudice is
present in spite of the fact that Latinos and Asians are often
privileged over native-born African Americans in the housing and
labor markets in spite of their recent arrival (Kaufmann 2006;
Holzer 1996; Wilson 1996; Massey and Denton 1993). Their success in
the labor market can be accounted for by the large supply of
employers who hire immigrants (legal and illegal) who will work for
lower wages and without benefits (Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991).
All evidence points to the relative economic advantage of Latinos
and Asians over similarly skilled African Americans, yet the
negative views of immigrants toward African Americans remain firmly
anchored, suggesting that economic insecurity is far from the only
wellspring of disparaging racial stereotypes (Johnson, Farrell and
Guinn 1999; McClain et al. 2006).
There is also increasing evidence that the political arena is a
venue for the logic of the zero-sum game. Serious cracks in the
rainbow coalition have been noted for at least 10 years, as 45
percent of African American voters supported Californias
Proposition 187 (Franklin and Seltzer 2002). In the years since,
Latinos and African Americans have been in more regular conflict
over such political spoils as municipal jobs, additional council
seats, and other perks and benefits associated with holding
influential political office (Alozie and Ramirez 1999; Cose and
Murr 2006; McClain 1993; Vaca 2004). Latino-African American
political coalitions in major cities appear to be more fragile than
they were just a few years ago (Kaufmann 2004). Younger generations
appear less willing to see themselves as part of a rainbow than
older generations who remember the original efforts by minority
leaders to form a unified front against white control of public
office.
African Americans and Latinos and the Quest for Political Office
In Congress, African American gains in office-holding were greatly
enhanced by the creation of majority-minority congressional
districts following the 1990 census (see Figure 1). Thirteen
additional majority-African American congressional districts
emerged, and predictably, they produced 13 new African American
representatives. By creating these districts, however, Republicans
were able to win many of the adjoining districts in the 1992 and
1994 elections. Ironically, then, the creation of these districts
bolstered minority representation, while assisting the political
party usually typecast as hostile to minority interests (Lublin
1999). Latino-majority districts also emerged from the 1990s
redistricting, producing six more Hispanic members of Congress than
had been serving before.
By the late 1990s, African American gains in Congress had leveled
out in the low 40s (see Figure 1). There are only so many African
American constituents that can be concentrated in majority-minority
districts, and given that the African American population is
growing slowly, and given the reluctance of white voters to support
African American candidates, the prospects for additional African
American gains seem quite slim in the near to mid-term. The
prospect for continued Latino gains, on the other hand, is very
bright. Their numbers in Congress rose steadily from the mid-90s to
2005, to stand at 26. Whereas African Americans gained only two
seats since the 1994 GOP takeover of the House, Latinos gained nine
seats (Asians, a far smaller population, also gained two).
The steady rise in Latino political power may not constitute a
trend, but there is good reason to believe that it does. First, the
Latino population continues to grow at an astounding rate, through
the processes of both legal and illegal immigration. Across states,
the average Latino growth rate from 2000 to 2004 was 23 percent,
compared to just 9 percent for African Americans undoubtedly an
underestimate of Latino growth due to the inability to accurately
count illegal entrants. In the 11 most populous states, where new
African American members of Congress would most likely emerge, the
Latino population grew four times faster than the African American
population, with Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, and Texas leading
the way.
Were the Latino population sprinkled evenly or randomly among the
Anglo-white population, perhaps there would be no reason to believe
that Latinos were destined for greater political representation at
all levels of office. But the figures listed in Table 1 indicate
that Latinos are highly segregated from the non-Hispanic white
population, particularly in the most populous states: California,
Florida, Texas, and New York.
If Latinos are not settling among the native-born white population,
then where are they settling? First, they are settling among
Latinos who have arrived previously. This pattern is the result of
network-based chain migration, along with the advantages of moving
to areas where language and culture are familiar (Logan 2001).
Second, they are settling in areas where there is affordable
housing, and some modicum of employment in the low-skill labor
market.
This combination of factors leads many to migrate to the large
cities where Latino populations have existed for decades: Los
Angeles, New York, and Chicago (Suro and Singer 2002). Through the
first five years of this decade, there are no signs that the
Hispanic population in these traditional immigrant destinations is
diminishing, although there is considerable churn.
Pull factors lead other immigrants to cities and older suburbs in
places where the Latino population has not been a longstanding
presence, including locations in Nevada, Georgia, Alabama, North
Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and even some rural states. In search
of low-cost housing, but desiring to be as near as possible to
prospective employers (for example, in the construction trades),
these immigrants find themselves settling in urban areas, proximate
to established African American populations, placing upward
pressure on housing costs, while filling various low-skill labor
market niches (Waldinger 2001). They may not choose to settle in
majority-African American neighborhoods, as most evidence suggests
that African Americans and Latinos are about as segregated from one
another as African Americans and non-Hispanic whites (see Table 1)
but they will settle proximate to African American neighborhoods
within jurisdictions such as Prince Georges County, Md., and DeKalb
County, Ga., commonly within the same state legislative and
congressional districts. One could describe this settlement pattern
as a kind of "segregated proximity."
While Latinos are slow to mobilize politically, the resulting
increase in the size of Hispanic populations proximate to but not
fully integrated with African American populations will eventually
reshape local electorates at these locations, changing the mix of
political interests expressed at the polls. The changes are
emerging at the local levels already, for local government council,
school board, city mayoralties, and state legislative seats.
Between 1991 and 2001, the number of all Latino officeholders grew
by 26 percent, compared with only 18 percent for African Americans.
Over this same period, Latino growth in state-level legislative and
executive positions outpaced African American growth by 55 to 23
percent. Latinos still hold fewer elective and appointive offices
than African Americans, but this gap is rapidly closing (Bositis
2001; Statistical Abstract 2006).
Up to now, Latino gains in public office have been fastest at lower
levels of office, positions that serve as "farm teams," or minor
league training grounds, for candidates seeking higher office
(Franklin and Seltzer 2002). The etiology from there is
predictable: increasingly crowded and divisive primaries are likely
to emerge, retiring African American incumbents will be replaced by
aggressive Latino challengers, or Latinos will challenge African
American candidates, winning few seats at first, but gradually
gaining leverage. This has already happened in a number of large
and medium-sized cities. In Providence, R.I., for example, African
American officeholders appear to be in full retreat in the face of
advancing Latino political power. The city of Chicagos Latino
population grew by 200,000 between 1990 and 2000, but it also
tallied 150,000 fewer whites, and 20,000 fewer African Americans.
Entrenched white and African American incumbents may continue to
hold the city council seats from the wards to which these Latino
populations are flowing, but once they retire, Latino candidates
will almost certainly be elected. Latinos are already betting that
they will have a serious candidate for the Chicago mayoralty in
2007.
Commonly, interethnic battles for local office are waged behind the
scenes rather than in official primaries. Candidates will challenge
each others bid for ballot positions at local boards of elections.
Ironically, liberal candidates usually operating as Democrats will
be charged with being anti-democratic, or even racist, for seeking
to eliminate African American, Latino, Asian, or gay rivals well
before an election. Counting the number of direct primary
challenges in which Latinos and African Americans find themselves
competing against one another may miss an important part of the
competitive gaming that takes place out of the public eye.
Nevertheless, we can expect the number of contested primaries to
increase in those areas where the party apparatus is unable to
broker the conflict before an election.
The Coming Rollback in African American Representation in the U.S. House
Based on Hispanic settlement patterns, and the growth of this
population, we can examine several cases in which sitting members
of Congress in a number of states find themselves representing
increasingly diverse populations out of which could emerge primary
challenges or some other form of seat turnover in the near future.
Many congressional districts held by African American members have
large and rising Latino populations, but few of the districts
occupied by Latino members have growing African American
populations out of which we might imagine future African American
gains.
In fact, the districts held by members of Hispanic ancestry are
more lopsidedly Latino than the districts held by African Americans
are weighted toward African Americans. For illustration, consider
the Los Angeles-area districts of Congressional Black Caucus
members Maxine Waters (D-Calif., 35^th), Juanita Millender-McDonald
(D-Calif., 37^th), and Diane Watson (D-Calif., 33^rd) (click here
to see Figure 2). These members serve plurality Latino
constituencies, at 47, 43, and 35 percent in 2000, respectively,
although actual turnout is exceedingly low in all three. The
venerable African American politician, and California state
assemblyman, Mervyn Dymally, summed up the truth of the situation
saying, "There are no safe African American districts anymore"
(Mitchell 2006).
But if we take three nearby Latino districts, those of Xavier
Becerra (D-Calif., 31^st), Hilda Solis (D-Calif., 32^nd), and
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif., 34^th), these all have
overwhelming Latino majorities (70, 62, and 77 percent).
Figure 3 (click here to see Figure 3) shows what the population of
these congressional districts would have looked like in 1980 if the
same congressional district boundaries had been in place then as
now. The map for 1980 makes it abundantly clear that the
neighborhoods lying within the contemporary Watson, Waters, and
Millender-McDonald districts were almost entirely majority African
American in that era (see Figure 3). But just 20 years later, the
majority African American character of those locations had
drastically eroded, cut by 50 percent, whereas the number of
majority Latino neighborhoods had more than doubled.
The upshot of these figures is clear. When Representatives Waters,
Millender-McDonald, and Watson retire, their seats could well be
taken over by Hispanic contenders. But when Becerra, Solis, and
Roybal-Allard retire, their successors will almost certainly be
Latinos. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y., 15^th) is a founding member of the
Congressional Black Caucus, yet his Harlem seat could easily be
taken over by a Hispanic candidate upon his retirement, given that
half of that districts constituency is Latino. Texas Black Caucus
members Al Green (D-Texas, 9^th), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas,
18^th), and Eddie Bernice-Johnson (D-Texas, 30^th), have larger
African American constituencies than their California counterparts,
but all have growing Latino constituencies that could result in a
loss of one or more of these seats due to retirement or
redistricting with the 2010 census (see Tables 2 and 3). By the
beginning of the next decade, there could be six or seven fewer
African American Democrats in Congress than there are today. There
will be no rollback of Latino congressional representation it will
continue to expand as immigration continues and immigrants have
families and naturalize.
In addition to the population growth associated with immigration,
several explanations account for why Latinos are making such
impressive gains in office holding. First, Latinos are working
within both parties, advancing in locations where African Americans
would never consider running. Whereas African American gains have
come almost entirely within the Democratic Party, about one-third
of Latinos regularly vote Republican, and support GOP candidates.
Presently, five of the 26 Latino members of Congress are
Republicans. In local elections, the propensity for Latinos to
support white candidates was well exemplified in the 2001 New York
mayoral race in which Latinos strongly supported the election of
Michael Bloomberg over Mark Green (Logan and Mollenkopf 2002), or
in the 2002 New York gubernatorial election, in which George Pataki
won considerable support from Latinos in his defeat of a African
American candidate, H. Carl McCall though this support was arguably
the result of apathy and low turnout among the Citys Latinos,
rather than their enthusiasm for Pataki. The support of Latinos in
San Antonio for Anglo Democrat Phil Hardberger (for mayor) over
Hispanic candidate Julian Castro, suggests a willingness of Latinos
to abandon ethnicity as a cue in some circumstances. The affinity
for the GOP in some locations (e.g., Texas, Florida) provides
Latinos with far more pathways for their upward political mobility
than African Americans currently possess.
Moreover, Latino candidates span the ideological spectrum, whereas
it is still rare to find African American candidates who stray far
from the liberal left. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a
centrist Democrat and Mexican American and Florida U.S. Senator Mel
Martinez is a Republican and of Cuban ancestry. Los Angeles Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa and recent New York City mayoral candidate
Fernando Ferrer are both liberals, while the current Miami Mayor,
Manny Diaz, is a registered independent. Without question, today
Latinos have a broader set of political options than African
Americans (Sawyer, 2005, 271-272).
Previous studies of local politics have shown that whites more
readily coalesce with Latinos than with African Americans (Meier
and Stewart 1991). The predominant form of racially polarized
voting in big-city elections is between whites and African
Americans, not whites and Latinos. This is because white voters are
more accepting of Latino candidates than they are of African
American candidates partly, perhaps, for ideological reasons.
Latinos are viewed as less politically extreme, and less
threatening to white interests, than African Americans. Racial
affinity also plays a role. Latinos are ethnically distinct from
Anglo whites, but most identify
racially as white. This no doubt explains the ready acceptance
among white Coloradoans of candidates such as Ken Salazar, and his
brother John both elected with white majorities, or the ready
acceptance of Bill Richardson among white New Mexicans, or Dennis
Cardoza (D-Calif., 18^th) among white Californians. As Table 1
shows, whites and Latinos are commonly less segregated by
neighborhood than African Americans and Latinos, although this is
not true in all cases.
To be sure, challenges to white liberal candidates by surging
Latinos have resulted, and will continue, but no one expresses much
concern about the declining white representation of minority
populations. And in the long term, the sustained flight of whites
out of cities suggests that white presence on various municipal
governing bodies should diminish anyway. Moreover, while African
Americans and Latinos commonly occupy adjacent rather than the same
neighborhoods, they more often reside within the same vicinity
(e.g., county or city), than whites and Latinos. In addition, the
propensity to use race and ethnically based criteria to define
"communities of interest," to draw Congressional district lines,
has ensured that the average white members congressional district
contains very few African American or Hispanic constituents, rarely
enough to field a serious African American challenger.
African American candidates may be successful reaching beyond their
base, following the example of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and
the efforts of former Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.). Republicans may
also have some success in recruiting competitive African American
candidates. But these pro-business, low-tax/low-spend officeholders
pursue deracialized campaign strategies in which they deemphasize
racial and ethnic interests. Such an orientation is not likely to
satisfy highly race-conscious African American constituents who
skeptically view them as sell-outs to corporate or Republican
influences. Nevertheless, in the face of growing Latino
populations, and shrinking African American majorities,
deracialized strategies, and African American movement toward the
much-loathed Republicans, may be the only pathway to further
expansion of African American office-holding.
Group Conflict and the Future of African Americans in Congress
We conclude by reconsidering the future of the multi-minority or
"black-brown" coalitions that were once a predictable fixture of
city politics in much of the country. Their future for African
American representation is in doubt largely because the rising
Latino numbers suggest that they dont need African American support
to be elected. Clearly the Hispanic members of Congress identified
in Table 3 do not need African American support as much as the
African American members need Latino support. This emerging Latino
independence of African American voters will only grow as Latino
political power catches up with the sheer numerical force of the
Hispanic population. That immigrants may jump ahead of African
Americans on the socioeconomic hierarchy is important for
determining whether they compete or cooperate (Garcia 2000). To the
extent that Latinos do not find themselves in the same boat as
African Americans, for instance, working in a political coalition
will be more challenging.
Competition and conflict were commonly viewed by the American
founders as a normal and even healthy condition, and the very goal
of proper institutional design is said to be the
civilizing of conflict. Having said that, however, there is a
growing awareness that in our nations history some groups and one
in particular, African Americans have consistently experienced
unfair competition and conflict (Chong and Kim 2006). Olzak reminds
us, for instance, that the intergroup competition and conflict
associated with the great wave of immigration toward the end of the
19th century actually resulted in competition that led to the
increased occupational segregation of African Americans (Olzak
1992).
Societies are not properly and naturally harmonious, or there would
be no need for politics. But too often the demand for tolerance of
diversity has made it difficult to evaluate intergroup relations
straightforwardly or honestly. By drawing on the rich, emerging
literature that is attempting to pin down the facts about the
nature of interethnic relations, we hope to initiate fruitful
discussions across political lines. In this spirit, we hope that
this essay contributes to a more realistic assessment of the
challenges that mass immigration poses for America in the early
years of the new millennium.
African Americans continue to lack the same opportunities for
education, employment, housing, health care, and venture capital
available to others. African Americans loyal political attachment
to the Democratic Party has not resulted in satisfactory policy
responses to many of these problems, especially during the period
congruent with the high immigration of the last 40 years. Arguably,
the African American demand for affirmative action benefits other
minority groups more than it does African Americans, in spite of
the fact that the latter have borne the disproportionate costs of
political support.
In summary, African Americans have an abiding policy interest in
the enforcement of immigration laws; greater public financial
support for access to higher education; reduced immigration,
especially of the low skilled and less educated; greater support
for progressive taxation; federal financial support to increase the
supply of affordable housing; and other matters of importance to a
majority of African Americans. African Americans must not only make
these serious political demands, but also must be willing to back
up those demands by reconsidering their entrenched political
loyalties, rather than by refusing to participate.
The challenges of a globalizing world economy require the
adaptation of African Americans to a new style of politics adequate
to meet the new problems that are emerging as well as those that
remain unresolved.
__________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________
Frank Morris is the former Executive Director of the Congressional
Black Caucus Foundation and is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science and former Dean of Graduate Studies at Morgan State
University.
James G. Gimpel is Professor of Government at the University of
Maryland.
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