Why
So Many Blacks Fear Illegal Immigrants - Pt. 1
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, BlackNews.com
Columnist
Near the close
of a recent spirited community forum in South Los Angeles
on black and Latino relations, a young black man in the audience
stood up and proudly, even defiantly, shouted that he was
a member of the Minuteman Project. This is the fringe group
that has waged a noisy, gun toting and headline grabbing campaign
to shut down the Mexican border to illegal immigrants. GOP
conservatives and immigration reformers denounce their borderline,
racist rants.
Their rhetoric
didn't faze the young black man, nor many other blacks in
the audience who nodded in agreement, as he launched into
a finger pointing, tirade against illegal immigrants that
he claimed steal jobs from blacks. He punctuated his tirade
by loudly announcing that he had taken part in a Minuteman
border patrol back in April. Illegal immigration clearly touched
a raw nerve with many blacks in the audience. Nationally,
many blacks are unabashed in fingering illegal immigrants,
mostly Mexicans, even though many illegal immigrants are from
Canada, Europe and Asia, for the poverty and job dislocation
in black communities. Illegal immigration has touched a national
nerve. More than half of Americans, according to a Pew Research
Center survey in November 2005, said that illegal immigration
should be a top national policy priority.
The first big warning sign of black frustration with illegal
immigration came during the battle over Proposition 187 in
California in 1994. White voters voted by big margins for
the proposition that denied public services to undocumented
immigrants. But nearly fifty percent of blacks also backed
the measure. Republican governor Pete Wilson shamelessly pandered
to anti-immigrant hysteria and rode it to a reelection victory.
Wilson
also got nearly 20 percent of the black vote that election.
It was double what Republicans in California typically
get from blacks. Wilson almost certainly bumped up his
black vote total with his freewheeling assault on illegal
immigration. Blacks have also given substantial support
to anti-bi-lingual ballot measures in California.
Though there is furious dispute over the economic impact
that the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in
the U.S. have on the job market, there is no concrete
evidence that the majority of employers hire Latinos
at low-end jobs and exclude blacks from them solely
because of their race. The sea of state and federal
anti-discrimination laws, and labor code sections explicitly
ban employment discrimination. Despite a recent flurry
of lawsuits and settlements by blacks against and with
major employers for alleged racial favoritism toward
Hispanic workers, employers vehemently deny that they
shun blacks, and maintain that blacks don't apply for
these jobs.
These aren't just flimsy covers for discrimination.
Many blacks will no longer work the low skilled, menial
factory, restaurant, and custodial jobs that in decades
past they filled. The pay is too low, the work too hard,
and the indignities too great. On the other hand, those
blacks that seek these jobs are often given a quick
brush off by employers. The subtle message is that blacks
won't be hired, even if they do apply. An entire category
of jobs at the bottom rung of American industry has
been clearly marked as "Latino only" jobs. That further
deepens suspicion and resentment among blacks that illegal
immigration is to blame for the economic misery of poor
blacks.
The anti-immigrant sentiment among blacks is not new.
A century ago, immigration was also a hot button issue
among black leaders. Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington,
and W.E.B. DuBois railed against Eastern European immigrants
that crowded Northern cities. They claimed the new immigrants
elbowed blacks out of the bottom rung manufacturing
jobs. At times, these leaders, otherwise, progressive,
and staunch fighters for civil rights and against Jim
Crow laws, sounded every bit as hard line as the most
rabid, nativist, America first anti-immigration foes
in demanding that the federal government clamp down
on legal and illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration then and now is not the prime reason
so many poor young blacks are on the streets, and why
some turn to gangs, guns and drug dealing to get ahead.
A shrinking economy, savage state and federal government
cuts in and the elimination of job and skills training
programs, failing public schools, a soaring black prison
population, and employment discrimination are still
the major reasons for the grim employment prospects
and poverty in inner city black neighborhoods.
Civil rights leaders, and the Congressional Black Caucus,
have repeatedly condemned the thinly disguised race
tinged appeals of the Minuteman Project, Save Our State,
and the legions of other fringe anti-immigration groups
that have cropped up in nearly every part of the country
in recent months. Some of them openly pitch their anti-immigrant
line to blacks. As the immigration debate heats up in
Congress and in the states, and with so many young blacks
unemployed and with a prison cell staring them in the
face, more blacks may find it harder to resist the temptation
to join in their shout to close down the border.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com,
an author and political analyst.
For
media interviews, contact:
Mr. Hutchinson at 323-296-6331 or hutchinsonreport@aol.com
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