Editorial: Melting pot boiling over

Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 | 8:01 a.m.

D isturbing is the least that could be said of a drawing that ran in a Spanish-language newspaper recently, showing a black man shooting a figure representing a Mexican worker and labeled "ATM."

The drawing is a poor and unsupported reaction to a rash of robberies targeting Mexicans. In a story in Sunday's Las Vegas Sun, Timothy Pratt reported that Metro Police have yet to analyze all of the data about the ethnicity of the robbers.

Yet the drawing is a sign of the tension growing between some in the black and Hispanic communities as the demographic makeup of Clark County changes with our booming growth. The tension comes as black and Hispanic neighborhoods bump up against one another. Similar situations are playing out across America.

"It's out there - black-Hispanic relations at a certain level have conflicts," Cordell Stokes, spokesman for the Caucus of African-American Nevadans, said.

Nicolas C. Vaca, who has written a book on the conflict between Hispanics and blacks, says it may "get worse before it gets better, as there is a readjustment of relations between the two groups."

That readjustment won't be easy, but the violence has to stop. So does the name-calling and the distrust.

There are, thankfully, community leaders trying to address this before the situation gets any worse.

For example, Stokes' group and Hispanics in Politics jointly hosted a debate between the candidates for sheriff.

Tony Sanchez, one of the event's organizers, said the debate showed how blacks and Hispanics were coming together.

"Never before have the two communities worked together on so many issues," Sanchez said.

That's a big claim and we hope it's true because this is a difficult and potentially explosive issue.

It's going to take caution and understanding. It's going to take real, substantive leadership, including the police, politicians and members of each group.

We applaud those who are working to ease the tension.

They have a big challenge, but if they can get their message across, they will make Las Vegas the richly diverse and cohesive community that it should be.