As it stands, the “old guard” of the civil rights movement has not warmed up to the immigration movement. Many still feel politically threatened by the rising number of Hispanics moving into their districts, and low wages and job losses have been attributed to the employment of undocumented workers. The result is a growing divide between the two communities. Tensions may have peaked in the last decade when former Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia used a racial slur while addressing a group of black students. The black community called for his firing, and the relationship never really healed during his tenure, with black educators accusing him of promoting less-qualified Hispanics into administrative positions. The “minority majority” school district continues to be the epicenter of tensions, which are exacerbated by everything from black and Hispanic gang conflicts to the disproportionate placement of minority children in special education programs. And the bottom line is not good: Minority students in Clark County have higher dropout rates, lower graduation rates and tend to score lower on standardized tests. Because of these and other challenges, it’s possible that the school district will be split by 2020. Tensions between the black and Jewish communities have been more subtle, with a few exceptions. Anti-Jewish sentiments and racist comments boiled over when UNLV regent Linda Howard accused fellow regent Mark Alden of making a racial insult. When the City Council voted to close F Street for the I-15 expansion in 2006, West Las Vegas residents accused Mayor Oscar Goodman of attempting to “wall off” the black
community from downtown redevelopment. Local synagogues and black churches have not had a coalition on any major issue. But there was a small breakthrough recently when the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League hosted a community lecture on “Hitler’s Black Victims.” The distribution of racial groups across the Valley will change dramatically by 2020. This, coupled with a generational shift in the black political arena, will continue to change racial attitudes. Diversified housing, schools and places of worship will lead to more inclusive thinking. Politicians will have to reach out to all minority voters, black elected officials will no longer be able to appeal to a blackonly constituency, and those who run public meetings will no longer be able to ignore the community’s smaller voices. The slowly evolving relationship between blacks and Hispanics will result in a recognition that—from education to unemployment— they often share the same problems, and those groups will start voting together, thus building clout for their communities. In fact, some blacks today believe they actually have a stake in the success of the movement for immigration rights. Overall, more blacks will find themselves aligned with other racial groups on issues that are important to them. And as they engage in community conversations about education, the economy, health care and unemployment, race will fade from the conversation. Patricia Cunningham is a radio talk-show host and political commentator on 88.1 KCEP.
History Needs to Repeat Itself
G R E E N : S ab i n O rr
In our past, the present included hard work on the future. By Michael Green Las Vegas is America’s youngest big city, meaning its population has grown too fast to keep up with its needs. That’s obvious, but what may be less obvious are two key problems: its lack of a sense of history, and the belief that we do not yet need to confront the problems facing older cities. Actually, we have aged quickly. Las Vegas may indeed be “the last Detroit”: We relied on one economic engine, ignored warning signs of a bubble, and now are paying dearly for it. Las Vegas will recover as the rest of the country does, but it will recover even faster if we realize how Las Vegas survived and progressed through transitions in the past. Those who say Las Vegas has no history, or argue, also mistakenly, that we blow it up, should consider evidence from our past. In the town’s early days, floods washed out the railroad tracks, all but cutting off Las Vegas during an economic downturn. Local business leaders kept investing, improving, inventing and imagining. When the railroad moved
its repair shops in the 1920s, it largely eliminated the town’s economic engine. Las Vegans pushed for Hoover Dam, daily air service and ways to promote Las Vegas as a tourist destination. In the 1940s, Las Vegans, hoping to attract visitors, created a fund for promoting the town, and out of that grew the Las Vegas News Bureau. In the 1950s and 1960s, bankers and supposed mobsters provided land, funds and furniture for a university, and the result was UNLV. As we turn the corner into a new decade, the closest ties to those farsighted achievements of our past are the emerging references to alternative energy resources. And money from Kirk Kerkorian and Brian Greenspun is bringing us a higher level of community service and a western branch of the Brookings Institution to offer information and resolutions to some of our problems. The wise businessmen and casino operators of our decades past would
tell us to run with our freshest ideas. As history proves over and over, the ultimate success of a community is not all about the present. Michael Green is a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada. He also writes the “Nevada Yesterdays” essays heard regularly on News 88.9 KNPR.
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