NYU Press Black and Brown in America: The Case for Cooperation: 22 (Critical America)

Too often, when America speaks of race, it is in black and white terms. Dialogue surrounding race seems always to position whiteness as the center around which all other colors revolve. Meanwhile relations between minorities are largely ignored, surfacing in our consciousness only when tensions flare, as in the case of Black-Korean violence in Los Angeles. In our life times, Whites will no longer constitute a majority in America. As a result, Black/Brown relationsand the need for this relationship to be fruitful and mutually supportivetake on an even greater urgency. Yet, this relationship has been troubled, characterized too often by a misguided sense of competitiveness, hostility, and even violence, as evidenced by the Miami race riots of the 1980s. In this brief, accessible, impassioned volume, Bill Piatt surveys Black/Brown relations in their entirety, devoting chapters to such issues as competition in a shrinking labor market, the re-segregation of our public schools, the language barrier, gang warfare, and voting coalitions. Reviewing similarities and differences between the Black and Brown experience in America, Bill Piatt emphasizes the need for solidarity and mutual understanding and offers explicit proposals for greater racial harmony. Blacks and Browns must get along not only for their sake, he argues, but for a stronger, more stable America.