Partners or Rivals?: Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century by Betina Cutaia Wilkinson

Author:Betina Cutaia Wilkinson [Wilkinson, Betina Cutaia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813937731
Google: kraFrgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 26267032
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2015-01-15T11:59:02+00:00

5

African Americans Discuss Race Relations in New Orleans

Besides analyzing national survey data to test the Triangular Theory of Contact, Context and Identification (TTCCI), I rely on focus group data to obtain a more comprehensive view of black/Latino and black/white relations. The number of prevalent qualitative analyses of black racial attitudes is quite limited. Focus group data of blacks not only allow me to examine the depth and intensity of blacks’ racial dispositions but also provide a deeper understanding of what is at the core of black attitudes and the extent to which they regard whites and Latinos similarly. In this chapter, I rely on New Orleans focus group data of African Americans to assess their perceptions of commonality and competition with whites and Latinos, and to delve further into some key, perplexing findings from the previous chapter.

African Americans in New Orleans

New Orleans is known for being “the birthplace of jazz” and “the city that care forgot,” but, simultaneously, it is a city with a long history of racism and of upholding a rigid social structure (Spain 1979; Wieder 1987). It was once one of the largest slave trading centers in the country. On one hand, slaves, free blacks, and whites intermingled throughout the city; on the other, “the purpose of this mix was . . . to keep an eye on blacks and prevent the growth of a cohesive black community” (Spain 1979, 86). With the introduction of Jim Crow laws in 1902 and the advent of public housing in 1937, segregation became more prevalent in New Orleans. In addition, the socioeconomic status of blacks remained poor throughout the twentieth century. In 1970, “forty-four percent of the city’s blacks earned incomes below the poverty level, compared to 10 percent of the whites” (Spain 1979, 94). Today, African Americans represent the majority of residents at 59 percent in Orleans Parish (Mack and Ortiz 2013). Yet as census data compiled by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center reveal, black residents in New Orleans trail whites and Latinos in various ways. The employment rate of black men in the New Orleans metro area is at 53 percent, considerably lower than the rate for white males (75%) and Latino males (78%). Further, the 2011 annual income of African American households in the New Orleans metro area ($28,265) is 50 percent less than the income for white households ($56,128) and is also lower than the annual income for Latino families ($43,647). As to educational attainments, African American males and females are obtaining bachelor’s and graduate degrees at considerably lower rates than their white and Latino counterparts (Plyer et al. 2013). After hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans metro area’s Latino population increased tremendously. Latinos in New Orleans heavily occupied the blue-collar employment sector, primarily obtaining jobs in the construction and service industries, positions often occupied by African Americans before the storm. Thus, Latinos’ emerging presence elicited some tension between blacks and the newcomers.

Still, the shifting demographic landscape and racial tensions that exist between black and Latino residents in New Orleans are not unique to the city.

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