Whenever I feel deprived of inflammatory e-mail, there are subjects I can explore that are certain to bring out the antipathy in people. One such issue is illegal immigration.
Recently, I wrote about the need for immigration reform that was fair and reflected the best of American values. I also wrote about a movement among African-American pastors locally as well as nationally who were embracing immigration reform as an important social justice cause.
Predictably, I received e-mail and voice mail with myriad reasons why immigration reform was a bad idea, especially for African-Americans to support.
One reader opined:
"Immigrants move into our communities, they ride on the coattails of the civil rights that blacks fought for, but really do not like us. And they should learn English (which is a whole other story). I am against these pastors and immigration reform. I am black and I vote."
Another reader wrote:
"Can someone please explain to me why black people should advocate for amnesty or a path to citizenship when the unemployment rate for us is already astronomical? I just don't get it. Are any of these pastors on the ground to witness the conflict between blacks and Latinos who move into our communities?"
These e-mails were consistent in tone with the majority of correspondence I received.
It is the overly simplistic "they are taking our jobs" versus "they do the jobs nobody else will do." Either side of this unsophisticated divide is apt to land one in a pit of hatred and insularity.
A study released last year titled "A Conversation About the Economic Effects of Immigrants on African Americans," conducted by Gerald D. Jaynes, professor of economics and African American studies at Yale University, debunks the emotional sound-bite stereotypes that so many hold to be true.
Jaynes asserts, "For about two decades, the best academic research has consistently concluded that, accounting for their overall benefits and costs, immigrants have had net positive effects on the American economy."
While Jaynes' observations challenge many existing stereotypes, the real culprit that pits low-income groups against each other is an insidious type of class warfare that is as old as the republic.
Not long before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr., in a sermon titled "The Drum Major Instinct," talked about how this phenomenon played out during the Civil Rights Movement.
Recalling when he was in a Birmingham, Ala., jail, King said each day the white jailers would show him how he was so wrong for demonstrating and how segregation was right.
According to King, about the third day the subject changed to where the jailers lived and their incomes.
King said, "And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You're just as poor as Negroes.
"You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor because, through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people," he said.
An argument could be made that without the impoverished white male, who's economic conditions were not much better than that of the slave, the South may not have had enough to field a Confederate Army.
Are we not witnessing a version of that behavior today as it relates to immigration reform?
The angry comments I recently received from African-Americans narrow the immigration debate and fail to factor its complexity. Moreover, the nexus of this debate is not among highly skilled labor, but more likely to take place among the unskilled labor force.
The issue is more about who is easiest to exploit economically than what group is taking another's job.
In our public discourse, a huge net has been cast over those who are loosely defined as middle class, leaving out those on the margins. It is those on the economic margins fueling much of the public rancor in the current immigration debate, blind to the fact that those they oppose are in a similar economic condition. Though unflattering, it is cyclical and profoundly American in its implementation.
When will low-income individuals, regardless of hue, come to the obvious realization they have more economic self-interest that unites them than the percentage of melanin in their skin that divides them?
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War." E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his Web site: byronspeaks.com.
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Are we once again conflating LEGAL immigration with ILLEGAL immigration? I think we are. Legal immigration is great for this country.
And as for the rather patronizing ' The angry comments I recently received from African-Americans narrow the immigration debate and fail to factor its complexity.' You need to factor in the kinds of jobs that illegal aliens are doing. A mere 5% work in agriculture. The rest are doing a wide variety of jobs, jobs that used to be done by Americans - check out a construction site sometime. They're doing jobs that used to be done by high school drop outs, students, and sadly, African Americans - the most hit by illegal aliens.
Oh but Latinos and African Americans must stand together...bull. One of the speakers at the 'March for America' said that this was the illegal aliens 'Selma', and you wonder why AA's think Illegal aliens are riding their civil rights coattails. Who brought illegal aliens here in chains?
I'm not African American, but my husband is, and he's pissed.
Oh, and by the way, there are studies out there that specifically say that illegal immigration disproportionately affects African Americans. Maybe you should do a little more research next time. Or maybe you did and just didn't fit in with your crappy story.
Walk past a construction site today (in NYC, that is) and you still will not see a lot of Black workers. You will, however, see many Mexicans, doing dangerous work at what I am guessing are not "standard" wages. When they are killed or maimed on the job, an often enough occurrence, there is no community to advocate for them.
Dr. King aside, you must look at the blows we have taken time and again, for every "American" whose legacy here seems to push Black people back even further. Black people's legacy, in part, is to have fought in every war this country has engaged in. Even when they said we could not fight. How many times did we have to prove that? Now we can't even construct buildings?
The very fact that traitorous confederate soldiers fought to defend a system that forced them to compete with free labor is a testimonial to the thickness of sickness that is America.
But "by way of observation" alone does not tell the entire story. If your focus remains at the surface are you not suggesting that if it were not for "Mexicans" that black workers would have an opportunity to be economically exploited? If the situation were reversed, don't you think blacks would behave in the same manner that you currently bemoan and others would carry the position that you raise? Your focus is on the one who is hired giving a pass to those who hire--profoundly American indeed!
Peace and blessings,
Byron