>so this cat and my dad work in the office of this furniture
>company and "naturally" (socially so) most of the cats in
>the factory are Mexican. So another way in which he says
>blacks are becoming whiter is the experience of otherness to
>a growing population of immigrants since blacks have been
>here forever, do not speak a common second language and are
>all US citizens


That's basically true. The lines of demarcation of "us" and "them" are fluid. Not saying that White America is accepting of blacks, but like your dad's friend implied "at least we speak English." The lines are bullshit of course bc they're based on the subjective valuation of what defines a group of people. One day "We're" all Americans fighting against terrorism, then "We're" all Americans fighting for the destruction of Affirmative Action, then "We're" all english speaking Americans fighting for a common language.