From The Ramparts

Immigration Debate From A Black Perspective

The Current Immigration Debate From A Black Perspective


In many ways the current brouhaha over immigration policies is a bogus issue, a ruse. It is a distraction being used by the administration to take our focus off the escalating federal debt, the ongoing debacle in Iraq, the administration’s subterranean approval ratings and the growing discontent with the way it does business. The administration hopes the resulting debate both pro and con immigration reform will take people’s minds off their own dismal performance. The other oddity is while reciting his 9-11-National Security mantra as the rationale for everything he does, Bu$h supports amnesty for illegal aliens while doing nothing to shore up security along the nation’s borders and ports. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are tripping over themselves to give some immigrants (keep in mind the Bu$h/NeoCon cabal and the corporate media have stoked Arab xenophobia since 9-11) the impression they are welcome here is not lost on Africans in America who remember the howls of protest against the Haitian “boat people” during the Clinton Administration. Vivid images of starving and impoverished dark skinned Haitians who only wanted an opportunity for a better life in America being turned back by the US Coast Guard still remain fixed in our consciousness. The fact that Africans and Caribbeans of African descent are not openly welcomed in America is also not lost on native African Americans.
Civil rights organizations like the NAACP and Urban League have remained mute on the issue probably because they do not want to get caught up in what they perceive as a divide and conquer scenario by attacking another group of people of color. Nevertheless, many grassroots Africans in America feel immigrants legal or otherwise take employment opportunities from them as they see employers looking for ways to enhance their bottom line as willing to pay lower wages and benefits to illegal aliens who are happy just to have any kind of job while not employing African-Americans already here. Many low skilled and low paying jobs such as farm laborers, landscapers, maids, nannies and housekeepers are now being filled by immigrants. Despite the animus and in some cases, envy percolating under the surface within the African-American community, the traditional African -American leadership which in many ways has lost touch with their poorer brethren have not weighed in on this issue. Over the weekend there were numerous rallies and demonstrations in support of immigration reform, yet many African-American leaders have shunned participation in both the debate and demonstrations . Part of the problem is the immigrants while claiming immigration reforms is a civil rights issue, have not reached out to, asked for support from or attempted to form alliances with Africa-Americans.
Many whites like to rationalize their exploitation and taking advantage of the illegal aliens and legal immigrants by saying they hire them because they have a better work ethic than African-Americans or poor whites. They claim they are more responsible and hard working than us. This is nothing more than a continuation of the lies they told about our ancestors being lazy, shiftless malingerers, the lies they used to rationalize the specious denigration and dehumanization of us as a people. So now they brag about hiring an illegal and pay them much less but they say they do it because the immigrants are better workers than native-born AmeriKKKans. Now they say if the reported eleven million plus illegal immigrants in this country were deported or sent home, the AmeriKKKan economy would collapse. That is utter nonsense and an insult to the hard working folks denied employment due to racial discrimination here in AmeriKKKa or globalization policies foisted upon us by the ruling elites and their stooges in the US Congress who passed legislation supposedly espousing “free trade” but that are in reality undermining the AmeriKKKan economy, depressing wages which will eventually undermine the standard of living of most AmeriKKKans.
Lastly, AmeriKKKa has always had quotas on the number of immigrants and unabashedly touted AmeriKKKa as a “white nation” meaning Anglo-Saxon based population passing restrictive immigration legislation as early as 1798. The US has a quota on the number of non-Europeans that come into this country. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act despite the fact Chinese helped build the trans-continental railroads and worked in the mines in California during the late 1860's. By 1917 Congress had passed immigration laws excluding a plethora of nationalities and ethnic groups. And the beat goes on. This debate is nothing new, in fact from my perspective it is a bogus issue, part and parcel to a program of white supremacist discrimination and exploitation.

-30-

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 6:03 AM