Calling Black and Latino Christians

Calling Black and Latino Christians
by Rodolpho Carrasco
in The Reconciler, Summer 1995
(Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif. and a columnist for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Check out more articles by Rodolpho Carrasco here.)

Peter Skerry wrote in a January issue of THE NEW REPUBLIC that immigration-induced competition is like "shock therapy" to Blacks. That same month, Ernest Harris in HISPANIC Magazine raised anew the spectre of the fight over a single, shrinking piece of pie. In early February, NEWSWEEK questioned "What Is Black?" on its cover and inferred that immigration and the rising Hispanic population are weakening Black solidarity.

Newcomers to the discussion over Black/Latino relations who read one or all three of these articles may have thought that Black/Latino relations are on an unstoppable downward slide.

But the fact is that this view represents only one side of the issue.

Let me first confirm the most widespread perception: as the U.S. Latino population grows, there is increased incidence of Black/Latino strife as the economic and political pie shrinks. The issues raised by Skerry, Harris and NEWSWEEK are indeed valid.

Read these articles in a one month period, as I did, and you may believe there is no hope for Black/Latino relations. But the press's problem, as well as the problem of many Americans, is invisibility: They are unaware that not all Blacks and Latinos feel hopeless.

From the Church spring pockets of hope.

In Chicago, Noel Castellanos and La Villita Community Church got their start with the help of Lawndale Community Church, a predominantly Black church. La Villita and Lawndale church leaders today participate in a multi-racial church coalition, dreaming of building bridges between the two communities.

In Denver, SAVE OUR YOUTH is a 110-church coalition that formed to reach urban youth with the gospel. That coalition includes sixty urban churches split evenly between Blacks and Latinos. Last October the coalition hosted a week-long youth evangelistic crusade, and is now following up with discipleship.

In Los Angeles, Celebration Christian Church boasts Black and Latino co-pastors. Ron Johnson is the African-American pastoral link who has a passion for seeing long-time Black members of the community worshipping in a body with newly arrived, Spanish-speaking immigrants. For this task, Johnson works long and hard to fortify his Spanish.

By presenting these examples, I am not saying tensions between Black and Latino Christians don't exist. In major East Coast cities, both sides can parade a host of battle scars. On the West Coast, urban Black commuter churches that rent their buildings to Latinos are viewed by some as "doing to Latinos what Whites did to Blacks." And tomorrow, rest assured, the press will discover a new variation on the problem.

What I am saying is that a key problem is invisibility, because pockets of hope in Black/Latino relations are all around us and rising. As our nation wonders aloud about when Blacks and Latinos will drop gloves and begin brawling, Christians committed to reconciliation need to make their witness more visible in the days ahead.

The stakes are high. Throughout the nation, a new generation dreams anew the hope of youth: that we can all get along -- indefinitely. In some places today, young people can touch it.

At Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in the Bronx, New York, the youth-directed curriculum upholds both African-American and Puerto Rican history and culture, even as the Latino executive leadership finds way to enhance the effective of both African-American and Puerto Rican youth leaders.

But the Youth Ministries, the La Villitas, the Save Our Youths are still too few and far between. In countless urban communities, young Blacks and Latinos see no examples of Blacks and Latinos loving each other, knowing each other, sacrificing for each other. The result? An alarming growth in Black/Latino youth violence, evidenced by high-mortality Black vs. Latino gang wars in prominent sections of Los Angeles, as well as general tensions evident on many high school campuses.

More need to know the good news of the gospel as it relates to the context of Black and Latino relations. If the press can only see one side of the story, let's show it the other. Most Christian and secular publications and newspapers are very interested in race related topics. Let's write articles, send letters, circulate press releases, desktop publish, surf the 'Net, call reporters and run the editorial department's fax ink dry.

The world needs to know there's more than one side to the story.

The copyright for these materials are owned by Rudy Carrasco.  These materials were used with permission by TechMission