Blacks vs. Immigrants Is a Zero-Sum Argument
By Sam Fulwood III and Henry
Fernandez
New America Media
Mar 21, 2010
The zero-sum argument that pits black
Americans against undocumented workers is a false premise.
At the heart of this specious
challenge to fairness for all U.S. workers is the idea that blacks
resent undocumented Latino immigrants for taking away jobs that would
rightfully belong to them. Restrictionist opponents of immigration
reform seize on this line of attack and exploit it to drive a wedge
between the two racial and ethnic communities.
It’s not working.
Don’t take our word for it. Ask Jose
Luis Marantes, an immigrant rights activist in Washington, D.C., who has
found some of his most ardent supporters from within the ranks of the
nation’s most frightened future workers: students on black college
campuses.
Marantes, a youth organizer for the
Center for Community Change, said that a recent encounter on the Howard
University campus convincingly demonstrated to him the
divide-and-conquer strategy’s failure. He was attending an Africana
studies class to discuss impending legislation to change the nation’s
immigration policies.
“One student stood up in the class
and challenged me [on immigration reform],” he said. “This student said
he was from Los Angeles and that where he came from Mexicans were the
enemy because they took work from black people. ‘So why should I listen
to anything you have to say?’”
Marantes recalled the air in the room
getting thick with tension. But that moment passed as quickly as it came
when a second student spoke up to denounce his classmate’s comments as
uninformed.
For a remarkable hour, Marantes sat
back as the predominately black classroom debated immigration policies
and U.S. history. The students talked about how blacks were denied
worker rights, how some of their ancestors were shut out of jobs and
opportunities, and how today’s laws cripple a fresh generation of
workers. Some students argued that it’s unfair—“like slavery”—for
contemporary immigration laws to break up families and pit one group
against another for seeking a better life.
“That class taught itself,” Marantes
said. “They were curious about the issue and hungry for information.
Once they got the right information, it was clear that the old arguments
didn’t seem right.”
Marantes said he didn’t challenge the
first student-—one of his classmates did with accurate information. That
changed the whole mood in the class.
“From that point on, it wasn’t about
blacks,” he said. “It wasn’t about Mexicans. It was about employers
undercutting workers and when they understood that, it was, like, ‘Ah! I
get it!’”
The debate and the class eventually
ended. And that’s when the most remarkable thing happened, Marantes
said. One student approached him and said the class discussion opened
his eyes. He wanted to know what he could do to help push the
immigration effort at the university. That student was joined by others
on the Howard campus, which has a long history of student activism for
progressive causes.
So when this weekend’s march in
Washington begins, some 85 black students from Howard University will be
among the activists calling for comprehensive immigration reform for new
American families and economic justice for all American families.
They will join tens of thousands of
diverse Americans from around the country who will listen to black
leaders such as Marc Morial of the National Urban League and Ben Jealous
of the NAACP, who both have prominent speaking roles.
They’ll groove to the truly American
band Los Lonely Boys, whose music is a combination of rock and roll,
blues, soul, country, and Tejano. And they will hear from Esther Lopez
of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which fights as hard
today for black, brown and white workers as it did generations ago for
Polish and Italian immigrants.
The students will also march with
those who don’t have great titles or the blessings of a college
education, but have figured it out. Low-wage black workers from places
like New Haven, Conn., and Milwaukee, Wis., are marching because they
know their economic futures rely on a fair playing field for all
workers.
This requires comprehensive
immigration reform that makes undocumented workers legal residents so
they can join with black, white, Asian and Latino workers to bargain
fairly for wages, organize unions, and stand up for basic workplace
protections. The simple dignity of a hard day’s work for a fair day’s
pay in our shared American journey has built not just a country, but
bridges among communities.
Sam Fulwood III and Henry Fernandez
are Senior Fellows at American Progress.
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