<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#3dffff"> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> From: "Jessica LaBumbard" <jesslabumbard@hotmail.com> A few days ago Yoshie asked what type of relationships in Detroit exist between African Americans and Arabs.  I'll share what I have seen/know. -clip-</BLOCKQUOTE>   I would like to hear what Charles has to say on this too. ^^^^^ Hello, Jessica. Well, we are getting to enough Detroiters here that we should have a local LBO-vanguard party meeting. In my opinion your summary of the problems is fairly accurate from what I know. On the other hand, I have wondered sometime whether Black people ,as the majority with some local power in numbers, might be less prejudice overall against Arab, Persian , etc. people than some other communites might be in these years of U.S. foreign policy conflict in the Middle East, really going back to the hostage crisis or even the '73 oil crisis; but that is highly speculative on my part, and I certainly haven't done any scientific test of it. All and all , I guess ( but don't know) Iraqis rather live in Detroit these days where there is less likely to be racist vilification because of the war. Of course, I tend to have a pro-Black bias, in the sense that I think Black people as a group are very politically progressive compared to the U.S. average, and that influences my speculation on this. The relationship probably has similarities to that between "Negroes" and Jews and Italians many years ago, i.e. "swarthy" white peoples, who experienced some discrimination themselves, but who were higher on the social ladder than African Americans. </HTML>