In my mind I pictured a small community college classroom with about 50 seats. Every other seat filled with an African american male, and the rest with an hispanic male. As reality began to settle and take its place, those seats became empty. Instead I found those same men sharing jail cells. I found those same men innocent victims to **** crimes; those same men taken captive by H.I.V. and ****. You asked, why should African Americans and Hispanics in the U.S. come together as minorities and these are the many reason why. You asked, What can be done to strengthen the relationship between African American and Hispanic communities, by taking those reasons and finding ways to erase them. Finally you ask How and why should historically black Universities and colleges continue to support these two cultures and my statement is simply; The number of Hispanic and African American men in jail is begining to rise, and when this happens the number of our men in college will surely decrease. African Americans and Hispanics share a lot of the same issues; to name a few, social security, healthcare, crime, and education. We must know that we as African Americans and Hispanics already have a disadvantage when dealing with these issues because we are outnumbered by Caucasians.For us to come together to speak and to respond to these issues could only work to our advantage. Our two cultures have accomplished a lot independently, however there is much more to be accomplished and we must go after it together. From the issues we deal with to our family structure, the Hispanic and African American cultures are two very similar cultures. We must recognize this fact in order to build a relationship within the communities. Once this has been recognized and the gap within the small communties has become tighter, we can go further towards dealing with bigger problems such as political issues. As we all know in the past these two cultures were denied the right to have a decent education. That right has now been given to us and we must take full advantage of it, however this will be difficult to do with the number of our men in jail increasing. These are men that need an education. We must simply encourage them and advertise those opportunities out there the same way we advertise new albums or the latest shoes. I find myself back in that same college classroom every other seat filled with an African American male and the rest with an Hispanic male, but this time those seats remained filled. Those men were not victims anymore, those men were not being held captive by HIV and ****, and jail cells were no longer where they rested their heads. Instead those men came together and build an unbreakable relationship that not even Incredible Hulk himself could break.
