The event was titled "Blacks and Hispanics: Allies or Rivals?"
The answer? Rivals -- according to the angry audience at a town hall meeting organized by the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, which aims to rebuild the black family by aiding troubled young African American men with housing, mentoring and employment.
The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of the organization, had arranged the meeting to take the temperature of the public -- particularly blacks and Latinos -- on relations between the two groups.
At least for this audience, gathered at the brotherhood group's headquarters near Pico and La Cienega boulevards Thursday night in Los Angeles, the temperature was hot.
For two hours, members of the audience of blacks, whites and Latinos spoke with a vehemence usually reserved for the dinner table -- or late-night talk radio shows. They publicly aired views that are often muttered in L.A. but not spoken out loud.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who sat on the meeting's panel, voiced the view of many in the city's political elite: "We should not pit groups against each other. Why do we have to look at it as blacks lose, Hispanics win? No one wins in this city without a coalition."
But the audience of about 80, almost evenly divided among the three groups, had already formed a coalition -- of anger. People would heckle Parks for the rest of the evening.
Terry Anderson, a radio host who has long opposed illegal immigration, was one of several panel members who blamed illegal immigrants for, in their opinion, stealing jobs from blacks and crowding schools and neighborhoods to unbearable limits.
"We have been invaded; there's no other word for it," Anderson said.
The audience clapped and cheered.
Debbie Hernandez, a white member of the audience, said: "Blacks are losing their middle-class status because of illegal aliens. I am willing to go to the streets with my brothers and sisters over this."
Sherrie Johnson, a resident of Torrance, told Parks, "You aren't taking a stand for the right side of the argument.
"I believe the purpose of going through the steps to become a citizen is because it protects the country," she said.
Education and employment emerged as the two most incendiary issues.
Blacks are no longer able to compete for entry-level jobs and construction work, Anderson said, because they are undercut by illegal immigrants willing to work for under-the-table wages.
