06/24/2005

Since we have nothing else to occupy our time, and since our communities are in the perfect shape we all wish for, blacks and Hispanics have again decided they better entertain themselves and others by engaging in a new ridiculous fight.

Washington's Voz, as its tag line says, strive to look for the Hispanic perspective of everything, but we do that in hopes of also covering the human and the minority perspective. In fact, in selecting our tag line, we discussed the issue of not been exclusive, we want to cover the particularities of the Hispanic community, as they pertain to the larger issues facing this society... because we are this society.

I remember often a line from Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being, when Sabrina says she isn't proud of being a woman, she is not ashamed either, because being a woman was something she did not chose, and how can one be proud or ashamed of an accident?

The fight this time involves a controversy at MacFarland Middle School in Ward 4, where students are three-quarters African-American and one-quarter Latino, and they have managed to notice that and create a problem that goes along racial lines.

The problems began when MacFarland's Principal Antonia Peters called an assembly to discuss conduct issues at school. According to some Latino students, Peters forbade them from speaking Spanish in the school. Others have no recollection of this. Parents, at any rate, are demanding a new Principal, because, they say, Peters is not qualified and is very condescendent.

Somehow, the facts of the story are less important than the problems it creates. Let's assume the students are right and the Principal said that. Then, dismissal may be in order, but, even the Latino students can't seem to agree on what exactly was said, so, what will be the reaction of the African American community?

Let's assume the students are making this up. Why would they do this? What's the need to mess with the delicate racial balance struck in the city? And, even further, why should the balance be so delicate and the capacity for upsetting it so prominent?

What would happen if a Latino Principal once emerges in MacFarland?
The Latino community has to work inside itself to fix the racism that is so pervasive among us. That racism is not even directed towards other communities, but towards members of our own community. I have myself observed and suffered the racism from my Hispanics pals, so I have to wonder how the African Americans feel about it.

Just in this edition, there are statistics about the health disparities that affect minority communities. In previous editions we have covered housing, HIV/AIDS, social security. We couldn't help but noticing the striking similarities in the conditions of the African American and the Hispanic communities, except for language, we share most everything, even the idea that we are different.