by
Sikivu Hutchinson
“When
it comes to immigration rights and reform, there is a pronounced
disconnect between black leadership and average black folk.”
As soon
as Arizona’s fascist anti-immigrant SB1070 legislation passed, black civil
rights leaders from Jesse Jackson to California Assembly member Karen
Bass roundly condemned it. The toxic national climate couldn’t be more
primed for this law. In recent months, the high octane atmosphere of
jingoistic racism, xenophobia and Manifest Destiny posturing amongst
white zealots and the legislators who shill for them has become standard
order. Now that the nation is in an uproar over SB1070, civil rights
coalitions have begun trying to mobilize African American opposition to
the Bill by linking black social justice activism with the immigrant
rights movement.
However,
when it comes to immigration rights and reform, there is a pronounced
disconnect between black leadership and average black folk. In the L.A. African American
Conservative Examiner respondents expressed support for SB1070. One
believed that if similar laws were enacted in California it would be a
deterrent to attacks on African Americans by Mexican immigrants. On the
liberal to moderate The Grio website some black posters sounded off about bearing
the brunt of racial discrimination, yet saw little connection between
their experiences and an authoritarian crackdown on Arizonans of color
under the legislation. Living elbow to elbow with Latinos in the same
socioeconomically depressed communities, black anxiety over interracial
violence and social/demographic usurpation by Latinos in the low wage
job sector has intensified. In cities where black and Latino day
laborers compete for construction and home improvement jobs, white
hiring preferences for Latinos have ignited controversy over racist
stereotypes about lazy blacks versus hardworking Mexicans. In Los
Angeles communities where predominantly black neighborhood schools have
become majority Latino, social and classroom segregation between the two
groups is a hard reality. The prevalence of Latino anti-black
prejudice, ranging from “pigmentocracy” bias to caricaturing blacks as
backward and “ghetto,” is a recurring complaint among some African
American youth. Further, the perception that Latino organizations don’t
support African American activism around such issues as racial profiling
and police brutality has long fueled mainstream black wariness of
black/Latino coalition building.
“Black
anxiety over interracial violence and social/demographic usurpation by
Latinos in the low wage job sector has intensified.”
It is
little wonder then that during last month’s Washington D.C. immigration
reform protests there was a notable dearth of black participation.
According to the online magazine The Root, immigrants of African
descent purportedly don’t participate in immigrant rights activism
because of class differences with Latin American immigrants. African and
Afro-Caribbean immigrants who come to the U.S. legally on H1-B or
student visas may perceive immigration reform as a “Latino phenomenon.”
Seeking professional careers, many don’t identify with the socioeconomic
desperation that motivates undocumented Latin American workers and
families to come to the U.S.
Homegrown
black support for or ambivalence about the Arizona law is symptomatic of
a deep vein of frustration, anger, cultural resentment and xenophobia.
Study after study indicates that African Americans are the most
residentially segregated, suffer the greatest discrimination in job
application and employment and are amongst the biggest recipients of
predatory mortgage loans. Fifty-six years after Brown v. Board there is
greater social isolation between African Americans and whites in
comparison to other racial groups. And white backlash to Obama’s
election continues to illustrate the intractability of post-Jim Crow
racism.
Because of
the legacies of slavery and racial apartheid, the word “nigger” is
still the universal signifier for dehumanization and otherness. For this
reason, black liberation resistance has always been based on the
struggle for recognition of both African American humanity and the basic
right to citizenship. So there has always been a visceral yearning
amongst black folk to wake up one morning and not be the ultimate other.
A yearning to truly be considered a “native” son or daughter in a
global empire based on forced African American immigration.
“Fifty-six
years after Brown v. Board there is greater social isolation between
African Americans and whites in comparison to other racial groups.”
For many
working class African Americans who see the gains of the civil rights
era smoldering in the ashes of staggering unemployment, incarceration
and high school drop-out rates, the plight of recently arrived
undocumented immigrants does not register as a cause for solidarity.
Ignorant of the bloody history of European imperial conquest of the
Southwest, African Americans selectively lap up the white nationalist
“taking back our country” swill at their peril. Creating a pure police
state to "protect" (white) citizens from government coddled illegals and
welfare leeches is part of the same old divide and conquer dynamic that
allows the way white elites profit from illegal immigrant labor and low
wage black labor to go unexamined.
Recently, a
white Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate called for the state’s
driver license exam to be given in English because, "If you want to
live here, (you need to) learn it." This nativist attempt to secure the
borders of the new Confederacy is a harbinger of public policy that
hearkens back to the literacy tests, poll taxes and other disfranchising
regimes of Jim Crow. Word to ambivalent black folk: the narrative of
nationhood, when spun by white supremacists, will never include you, no
matter how Anglo your sur (read, slave) name or how “un-inflected” your
English is. In the lynch mob mentality of some law enforcement, SB1070’s
mandate for investigation with “reasonable suspicion” will always mean
you.
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of www.blackfemlens.org.
(via Black Agenda Report)