The Forgotten War

The death of Jamiel Shaw Jr., a high school football player who had been recruited by Division 1 colleges, recently brought this sad conflict to the headlines again. Shaw was shot dead a few blocks from his home by a recently paroled Latino gang member. Shaw had never been involved with a gang, and his parents had taken great pains to keep him on the straight and narrow. He was killed because of the color of his skin. Shaw’s story created national headlines, not only because he was a football player, but because his mother was serving in Iraq when she got the sad news.

Cases like this fill you with rage and frustration. Rage because of the sheer stupidity of this war, which consists of two underprivileged groups killing themselves over territory which neither of them really owns. It’s like a pair of mangy dogs fighting over the scraps thrown from the table. Black people are aware of our place in American society, but if Latinos think that mainstream American society holds them with less contempt than black people are afforded, I suggest that they listen to AM radio or the FOX News channel .

The shrinking economy has caused the nation to lash out at immigrants. (This usually happens every 10 years.) And since Latinos are the main face of the illegal immigration problem, especially in Southern California, they are bearing the brunt of the anger. States are passing laws that bar landlords from renting to illegals, and the atmosphere is so negative that anyone who even looks like a Latino is suspect.

America has made a lot of racial progress but Latinos have yet to be “let into the country club,” the way the Italians and the Irish were. Those groups were once regarded as social pariahs and barred from the upper echelons of society, but over the years they became “whitened,” to the point that most Italian or Irish Americans see themselves as part of the mainstream.

The Black-Brown war is frustrating because these are two groups which ought to be working together on common causes such as failing schools, access to healthcare and unfair sentencing. Some black conspiracy theorists would suggest that the Black-Brown war is secretly motivated by the man, who is practising that age-old tactic of divide and conquer.Sound crazy? Well consider that during apartheid rule in South Africa, the government armed the Zulus to create conflict within the black liberation movement.