Fontana, California city councilperson Acquanetta Warren minced no words at her campaign stops at black churches in the area. She enthusiastically cheered the Arizona immigration law. She didn't stop there. She said that a tough law cracking down on illegal immigration was long overdue, waved off any notion that it would lead to racial profiling, and challenged the federal government to do its job and fully enforce the tough immigration controls. Warren is a Republican, running for a state assembly seat, and she's black. Her tout of Arizona's law had nothing to do with partisan conservative politics or belief; it was a matter of jobs, or the lack thereof, for young blacks. Warren cited a recent study that claims that the influx of Latino workers into a city increases unemployment and violence in the African-American community.
It's not a new claim. Intense debate and raging battles have been fought the last few years, between economists, politicians, immigrant rights activists and black anti-immigration activists over whether illegal immigrants are the major cause of double-digit joblessness among poor, unskilled, young black males. The national furor over the Arizona immigration law reignited this old debate.
The job picture for black males is indeed grim. According to Labor Department reports, nearly 40 percent of young black males are unemployed. In some inner city neighborhoods, more than half of young black males are jobless. The Congressional Black Caucus and other community organizations have pressed President Obama to say and do more about the jobless crisis among blacks. Obama has refused to specifically push any special initiatives or earmark funding for unemployed blacks. He contends that growing the economy and the billions pumped in stimulus dollars in job projects is the best way to dent black joblessness. This caused a momentary flap with the CBC last December.
Despite the administration's belief and best efforts, the hard reality is that black unemployment remains the highest of any group in America. Warren and the researchers dump much of the blame for this on immigration. There is some evidence that in the unskilled trades, retail and service industries, illegal immigration has had a negative impact on black job loss. The debate though is how great is the loss? Anti-immigration groups claim that illegal immigrants take tens of thousands from blacks. Civil rights groups say that number is wildly inflated.
Several years before the immigration combatants squared off, however, University of Wisconsin graduate researcher Devah Pager pointed the finger in another direction, a direction that makes most employers squirm. And that's toward the persistent and deep racial discrimination in the workplace. Pager found that black men without a criminal record are less likely to find a job than white men with criminal records.
In 2005 Pager duplicated her study. The results were exactly the same as in her earlier study, despite the fact that New York has some of the nation's toughest laws against job discrimination.
Dumping the blame for the chronic job crisis of young, poor black men on undocumented immigrants stokes the passions and hysteria of immigration reform opponents, but it also lets employers off the hook for discrimination. The mountain of federal and state anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action programs and successful employment discrimination lawsuits give the public the impression that job discrimination is a relic of a shameful, racist past.
Countless research studies and the numerous discrimination complaints reviewed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the past decade reveal that employers have devised endless dodges to evade anti-discrimination laws. That includes rejecting applicants by their names or areas of the city they live in. Black applicants may be incorrectly told that jobs advertised were filled already.
In studies of the hiring practices of employers in some cities, many top company officials when interviewed said they would not hire blacks. When asked to assess the work ethic of white, black and Latino employees by race, nearly 40 percent of the employer's ranked blacks dead last.
The employers routinely described blacks as being "unskilled," "uneducated," "illiterate," "dishonest," "lacking initiative," "involved with gangs and drugs" or "unstable," of having "no family values" and being "poor role models." The consensus among these employers was that blacks brought their alleged pathologies to the work place, and were to be avoided at all costs. Not only white employers express such views; researchers found that black business owners shared many of the same negative attitudes.
Other surveys have found that a substantial number of non-white business owners also refuse to hire blacks. Their bias effectively closed out another area of employment to thousands of blacks, solely based on their color.
Warren's political pandering aside, her unabashed praise of the Arizona law taps the fear and frustration of many blacks over the dreary job picture for black job seekers. Immigration has had some arguable impact on that picture. But the prime culprit remains, as always, discrimination. Fingering Illegal Immigrants for the black jobless crisis won't change that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Pamela Alma Weymouth: Telephone Mamas: Separating Families to Serve Our Own
This Lecture was done in 1999. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM1YU-Ni_84
Looking at the chart when he gets there,
What they estimated in 1999 for 2010 is spot on what actually happened.
[Estimated in 1999 it would be just over 300 million in 2010.]
When he gets to the gumball demonstration keep in mind the large jar represents the people in the world that are WORSE OFF than Mexicans.
Because of illegal immigration from 1999 to present we've had to:
Build TWICE as many schools.
Build TWICE as many roads.
Build TWICE as many sewer plants.
Build TWICE as many power plants.
Build TWICE as much about anything else.
Had to add twice as many cops and firemen and teachers. [Or leave areas under serviced.]
And use TWICE as many trees and other natural resources.
Anyone that thinks illegal immigration isn't a significant load on our economy and natural resources is a moron.
If you don't want every city in the US to become a giant LA Slum within our or our children's lifetimes then it has to STOP NOW!
~
Link to just the chart. [Sorry about the quality.]
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/files/imagecache/fpage/files/cck_images/population.jpg...
I am retired now but I worked many years as a nurse's aide, a job that by any standard is a menial job. I was taught that any job is good as long as it is honest. I know many other Americans who work hard menial jobs so all this weeping about the poor Latinos goes right over my head. Go back home if you cannot follow the rules and come in legally!
On May 2nd, I listened to Al Sharpton's syndicated radio talk show as a West Indian female, living in NYC for the past 23 years, spoke her "piece". Among her comments: (1) have you even seen a black American standing outside of Home Deport/Lowe' s looking for work or (2) seen a black American working on a roof in 180 degrees?"
She concluded her remarks saying "these jobs were HERE before we ever came".
Quoting Stephen Colbert, she spoke "truthiness". Black Americans and white Americans, alike, have refused employment in THEIR perception of "menial jobs". AMERICANS prefer to commence their careers at near the top or the top of the middle. This concept is deeply rooted in EVERY Americans belief as being "exceptional".
Somewhere along the telling of America's history, did we forget the tell "the real story"?
My mother worked at a factory where the boss so disregarded the humanity of his brown workers, he walked into the lady’s bathroom. He felt this was acceptable because he was the boss. Today, such an infraction could cost a company owner millions. Today, the same disrespect occurs; it simply has a new interface to promote/cloak the same old same old. Can you know the horrors of which I speak? The subtle race tinged joke, the stares, the sneers, the whispers, and all the other stuff that is – John Henry beat the machine…but he died doing it.
It's definately in the black worker's interest to get behind the movement to get illegal aliens out of the country, now.
As I read, I considered the problem of brown unemployment and Mr. Obama's seeming trickle down approach (framed as lifting all boats), as if the issue does not have unique attributes that do not lend easily to one size fits all solutions. You cannot omit the history from the question of dealing with the problem. I do not care how well the lie of self responsibility has been allowed to cloud the fact that four hundred does not forty make. Do not talk to me of the scientific method of analysis when you refuse to consider -- cause and effect. Do not talk to me of the glory of America when you consistently obfuscate or otherwise omit the bane of American existence. Do not cite self responsibility in a country denying responsibility for – preexisting conditions. Talk not of education if you refer not to mis-education. Truth comes with no guarantee of comfort or winning friends.
The issue of immigration is righteous blowback. Karma comes home.
http://www.theroot.com/views/how-illegal-immigration-hurts-black-america
Instead of trying to tear the two peoples further apart, elected officials should be trying to get everyone together. We're much more alike than the other thinks. And both groups working together could be a dynamic and powerful voting block. This woman is a disgrace.
As for the issue at hand, it is the pay pure and simple of those 'jobs that Americans won't do." Pay a decent wage and stop with the discrimination when it comes to hiring. Hire the best person regardless of race, name or whatever. When you don't hire young black males or the young regardless of race, they will turn to crime to get food, clothing and shelter. Minimum wage doesn't even pay rent. And anyone regardless of race won't take a job that isn't going to at least pay rent.
If anyone is to blame for the illegal immigration problem it is the employers. Start hauling them to court, seizing their assets and giving them mandatory 10 year prison sentences, they'll stop playing this nasty employment game.
Huge generalization on your part.
1. Inner city law enforcement are primarily Minorities of the same ethnicity. Who do you think arrests those citizens breaking the law ?
2. Most inner city Police Commissioners are Minorities for large urban areas as well as Mayors and Sargeants. Those who over see Police Officer arrest profiles and patterns.
MISHAWAKA, Ind. - Thirty-six illegal aliens working at a manufacturing plant here were arrested today by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents as part of an ongoing worksite enforcement investigation.
The illegal alien workers were employed at Janco Composites Inc., an industrial plant located in Mishawaka that manufactures fiberglass plastic products for a variety of industries. ICE agents arrested the immigration violators while executing a criminal search warrant this morning obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Indiana. This remains an ongoing investigation.
My mother worked at Janco into her 60's. The area unemployment rate is 18-20%; it has never been easy to find a job here.
How does legalizing illegal aliens help Americans doing the same jobs?
Any reform MUST include stiff criminal and financial penalties for ANY employer who knowingly hires undocumented workers.
So then illegal immigration has been good for blacks? I know what you intended to say, but this was carelessly written.
That bit of grammar fairy-ism aside, American history has been informed by often heated competition between minority groups for standing in society and what is going on in Fontana, a meth ridden tough former steel town in Riverside County whose politics have long been more like Alabama's than California's, is just another indication of that. Blacks are slightly under 12% of the population there while hispanics now comprise about 58% and whites 24%.
In places such as Lynwoood, Inglewood and Long Beach, there have been rising tensions for years between blacks and hispanics, with blacks disturbed to find political power in those areas shifting from their's to that of hispanics. You also had the gang shootings of blacks in Norwalk.
And that is after you see the strains between Korean-Americans and blacks in L.A.