URBAN TENSION LATINOS' NEW CLOUT THREATENING TO BLACKS.

Byline: Earl Ofari Hutchinson

THE Census Bureau's estimate that Latinos now outnumber blacks in the U.S. is hardly a surprise. Demographers have long predicted that, given the higher Latino birth rates and massive immigration, legal and otherwise, Latinos would eventually dislodge blacks as the top minority in America. But the real story behind the Latino versus black numbers is not in the numbers but in the problems and challenges to each group.

Long before the current Latino population surge, Latino political activists demanded that racial conflict in America no longer be framed solely in black and white. They made the demand to get policy makers to pay more attention to the staggeringly high Latino poverty rate, job discrimination, failing public schools and immigration. Unfortunately, these are the very issues that have also caused intense conflict between blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles.

Jobs: The first warning that many blacks felt threatened by soaring Latino immigration was the battle over Proposition 187 in California in 1994. California voters approved the measure, which denied public services to illegal immigrants, by a huge margin. Blacks by a thin majority also backed the measure. They were afraid that Latinos would bump poor blacks from low-skilled jobs, and further marginalize them by increasing joblessness and fueling the crime and drug crises in South Central Los Angeles. But the prime reason for chronic black unemployment in L.A. County and elsewhere is lingering racial discrimination, the lack of job skills, training and education. Yet many blacks still blame their job plight on illegal immigrants.

Politics: Latinos have swelled voter ranks in California. There are now more than 2 million Latino voters in the state, and that number will leap even higher by the 2004 presidential elections. While Democrats and Republicans scramble to bag Latino votes, some black politicians openly worry that this could further dilute their political power. This is not a totally false fear. In the past decade the number of blacks in the California Legislature has been cut nearly in half. Meanwhile, the number of Latinos in the Legislature has skyrocketed. And, if present demographic trends continue, blacks could lose to Latinos one or possibly two of the three seats they currently hold on the L.A. City Council. For the past two decades, those seats have been considered safe ``black'' seats. But no more.

Education: Latinos and blacks make up the majority of students in L.A. city schools. But these schools are also among the poorest and most segregated. In their desperation to get a quality education, Latinos and blacks accuse each other of gobbling up scarce resources, dragging down test scores and fueling the rise in crime and gang problems at the schools. The answer is to press city school officials for more funding, better teachers and quality learning materials. But when the money is not there, the problem quickly is reduced to ethnic squabbling over the scarce dollars.

Then there's the problem of ethnic insensitivity. Many blacks perceive that Latinos encounter less discrimination and enjoy more mobility and opportunities than themselves. The stunning success of Asian and Latino immigrants in business and the professions in L.A. County seems proof of this. Many immigrants seem able to secure business loans, credit, access to education and the professions with much more ease than blacks encounter.

Many Latinos fail to understand the complexity and severity of the black experience. They frequently bash blacks for their poverty and goad them to pull themselves up like other immigrants have done. Worse, some even repeat the same vicious anti-black epithets used by racist whites.

But ethnic insensitivity cuts both ways. Blacks have little understanding of the impoverishment and social turmoil that have driven many Latinos to seek jobs and refuge in the United States. Once here, they face the massive problems of readjusting to a strange culture, customs and language, and that includes discrimination too.

Despite these obstacles, blacks and Latinos live together in most South Central Los Angeles neighborhoods. In some of them, community groups have tenuously bridged the culture and language gap and have joined forces to protest crime and school and housing deterioration. In many schools, Latino and black students participate jointly in Cinco de Mayo and Black History Month celebrations. They learn and appreciate more of the rich culture and history of each group. This also increases the chance that blacks and Latinos will fight together against housing and job discrimination, failing public schools, and drug and gang violence.

African-Americans and Latinos are undergoing a painful period of adjustment. They are finding that the struggle for power and recognition is long and difficult. On some issues they can be allies, on others they will go it alone. But ousting blacks from the top minority spot in America won't make the problems blacks and Latinos face disappear, nor will blaming each other for those problems solve them.