Sakeenah Shabazz is only 16 years old, but she gets it.

The sophomore from Lincoln High School in San Diego was one of the few black people who marched along with immigrant rights activists during a rally held in downtown Los Angeles on  March 28. In perfect Spanish, Sakeenah could be heard chanting, along with hundreds of others "Si se puede" and "Que queremos? Legalización."

"Everybody is related somehow," she told me. "Even if we have different religion or race, if we're Latino or African American, we're all oppressed by the same people."

Yes, there are tensions between Blacks and Latinos, just like there are tensions between ethnic groups that live in close proximity but know little about one another. Latinos are afraid of blacks because they're portrayed by the media as being the perpetual criminals. Blacks resent Latinos because they're perceived as taking their jobs.

The reality is, like Sakeenah said, both groups have been oppressed by the same forces that put white people in power and pretty much keep everyone where they are. It's a reality that began when the Dutch and English started shipping black slaves like cattle across the ocean and when the Spaniards ransacked all the riches of the Americas centuries ago. Once the economic system was established, once the Europeans decided they were superior and we people of color were trash, it's been an uphill battle.

Yes, this is not the politically correct thing to say. Just look at how much flack Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva caught when he blamed the global economic meltdown on "white people with blue eyes." He had to later explain his remarks, but the truth is, he's right.

This is how it works: a group of white Europeans (Spaniards, English, Germans) arrive at a region populated by people of color and decide these natives are stupid/inferior/dirty etc. (And honestly, I don't want to get into challenging why Native Americans or blacks are NOT stupid just because they were not as "technologically advanced" as the invaders. That's a topic for another column.) Because these people are stupid and don't know how good they have it in their rich and productive lands, they should be taught and re-educated in the European way. In the process, the new arrivals make laws that benefit themselves and subjugate the natives. Because the children of the invaders benefit from the rules, they keep them in place and anybody who speaks out against them is considered a "traitor" and is hunted down and maybe even killed. And so on and so forth for centuries until we arrive at the AIG scandal.

Yes, people in power make rules to their own benefit. It's that simple.

I want to make something very clear. Although the system we have has been established in general by the white economic order, I'm not trying to say that white people in particular are to blame. I don't think Geneva Overholser, director of the school of journalism at USC, is personally responsible for hundreds of Latino children having to attend terrible schools, or that my stereotypically white best friend, Julie Reynolds, has to pay for the fact that I was born chubby and dark. White privilege has nothing to do with personal responsibility.

But I digress.

Yes, Latinos and blacks suffer from the same economic system established by "the man" and it would be nice if we could recognize that. It would be great if we could see past our differences -- although we have many -- and unite for social and economic justice for everyone.

Of course, there are those who are trying. Last year, recognizing that the media was running rampant with the myth that Latinos would never vote for the Chicago senator because of his color, Alberto Retana helped found "Latinos for Obama," in South L.A. Retana spoke Wednesday at a forum organized by the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, where two Latino and two black speakers shared their experiences about bringing their communities together.

Indeed, some Latinos I know had hesitations, at first, about the candidate. Still, almost as if trying to convince themselves, I often heard them recite monologues like "But black people are just like us, right? I mean, Obama is intelligent, and he has a nice family, and he's Christian, right? And they were slaves and maybe he will be a good president, right?" 

Luis Valdez, a playwright and beloved icon in the Chicano civil rights community, bucked the Latino political establishment and came out for Obama early in his campaign. He told me: "We need fresh blood. Voting for Hillary would be like trying to fix a bad marriage."

Gerald Lenoir, director of the Berkeley-based Black Alliance for Just Immigration, said during Thursday's forum that he worries the task ahead for his organization is huge: to convince blacks that this country needs immigration reform. But then he remembers other battles he's fought: helping to dismantle Apartheid and bringing awareness about HIV and AIDS to the black community.

Indeed, immigration reform is the continuation of centuries of struggle, of battles that have been fought every time a person of color has rebelled against a punitive social and economic system. More often than not, these battles have been won with the help with our white brothers and sisters, of people of good faith regardless of their skin tone. We are all in this together and we all need all the help we can get.