Craig Steven Wilder: Why I Joined La Raza!
[Craig Steven Wilder is a Professor of History at
Dartmouth College.]
The attempt to change the political climate in Washington by escalating the immigration debate has backfired. Instead of swamping the airwaves and virtual world with news that emphasized their policy strengths, Republicans on Capitol Hill have unwittingly catalyzed massive civil rights demonstrations. Part of the problem, of course, is their reckless cafeteria-style rhetoric, which vulgarly seeks its audience by offering immigration as the source of everything from economic and political fragmentation to racial strife and cultural decline.
Reacting to the backlash, rightwing spokespersons have been searching for new strategies. During the April 2nd Sunday morning news shows, Pat Buchanan accused the Democratic Party of "selling out black people" by failing to take a strong stance against "illegal" immigrants. Reviving old economic and political arguments, Buchanan asserted that these immigrants depressed wages and increased job competition in ways that made it difficult for black people to climb from poverty.
Pat Buchanan has not built his career on sympathy for impoverished black folk and his self-serving statement could be dismissed if it did not speak to a much more insidious attempt to use African Americans to cannibalize other people of color. A recent Washington Post report noted that, despite competition for low-skilled jobs between black workers and immigrant laborers, African Americans were less likely than white people to favor immigrant exclusion. As those of us who have lived in low-income black neighborhoods likely know, the alleged connection between poverty and immigration is at best weak.
It is absolutely true that there are black communities suffering dire economic hardship but that pain is inflicted from above, not from below or beside. Our problem is not other people of color or other poor people. The forces that have destabilized black America are rooted in decades of public policies that isolated and ghettoized African American communities, undermined public education systems, curtailed public and private investment in affordable housing, assaulted unions, removed the economic ladder that created the twentieth century white middle class, and then responded to the resulting devastation with a regime of criminalization and incarceration. These policies predate the current immigration wave and they are the very policies that helped bring the Pat Buchanans of the nation to power and influence.
The voices and images of black people are often manipulated in public discourse. Mainstream media tend to invoke opinion surveys of black Americans to bolster their own credibility on racially sensitive public questions while ignoring or silencing black people on matters that are not deemed racial. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, "black opinion" was a common reference in discussions about the possible racial profiling of Arab and Muslim communities. This selective deployment continues in the current debate about undocumented immigrants.
The immigrant struggle for a better life, for hope, for opportunity, resonates with our centuries-long battle for equality and inclusion. Fairness and justice are no threat to black people's progress. In fact, the African American civil rights movement contributed to the political moment in which the United States reduced racist barriers to immigration and citizenship. That battle continues.
We need only recall the immoral treatment of the Haitian refugees who routinely make life-or-death lunges for the Florida shore in makeshift boats and rafts to recognize the deeply racist and anti-Mexican underpinnings of the current border debate. United States border, economic, and labor policies have been calibrated to seduce Mexican workers to make the very crossing, which now, in one corner of the debate, is being upgraded to a felony.
Black Americans should be concerned about the US-Mexico border--not out of fear of immigrants but because hundreds of people die crossing it each year. We must condemn racist hysteria by calling for justice and inclusion. We cannot allow bigots seeking cover to appropriate the language and the symbols of our historic struggle and turn them into weapons to be used against other marginalized communities. The absence of a real opposition party heightens this threat. The impotence of the Democrats has created the political vacuum in which people who are hostile to all civil rights struggles can pretend to be legitimate spokespersons on race relations.
The future of social justice will depend upon recognizing the commonalities between poorer and working-class people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We will be called upon to lead parts of this fight and we will often need to follow. Right now, it is urgent that we support the anti-racist campaigns of organizations like the National Council of La Raza.
Dartmouth College.]
The attempt to change the political climate in Washington by escalating the immigration debate has backfired. Instead of swamping the airwaves and virtual world with news that emphasized their policy strengths, Republicans on Capitol Hill have unwittingly catalyzed massive civil rights demonstrations. Part of the problem, of course, is their reckless cafeteria-style rhetoric, which vulgarly seeks its audience by offering immigration as the source of everything from economic and political fragmentation to racial strife and cultural decline.
Reacting to the backlash, rightwing spokespersons have been searching for new strategies. During the April 2nd Sunday morning news shows, Pat Buchanan accused the Democratic Party of "selling out black people" by failing to take a strong stance against "illegal" immigrants. Reviving old economic and political arguments, Buchanan asserted that these immigrants depressed wages and increased job competition in ways that made it difficult for black people to climb from poverty.
Pat Buchanan has not built his career on sympathy for impoverished black folk and his self-serving statement could be dismissed if it did not speak to a much more insidious attempt to use African Americans to cannibalize other people of color. A recent Washington Post report noted that, despite competition for low-skilled jobs between black workers and immigrant laborers, African Americans were less likely than white people to favor immigrant exclusion. As those of us who have lived in low-income black neighborhoods likely know, the alleged connection between poverty and immigration is at best weak.
It is absolutely true that there are black communities suffering dire economic hardship but that pain is inflicted from above, not from below or beside. Our problem is not other people of color or other poor people. The forces that have destabilized black America are rooted in decades of public policies that isolated and ghettoized African American communities, undermined public education systems, curtailed public and private investment in affordable housing, assaulted unions, removed the economic ladder that created the twentieth century white middle class, and then responded to the resulting devastation with a regime of criminalization and incarceration. These policies predate the current immigration wave and they are the very policies that helped bring the Pat Buchanans of the nation to power and influence.
The voices and images of black people are often manipulated in public discourse. Mainstream media tend to invoke opinion surveys of black Americans to bolster their own credibility on racially sensitive public questions while ignoring or silencing black people on matters that are not deemed racial. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, "black opinion" was a common reference in discussions about the possible racial profiling of Arab and Muslim communities. This selective deployment continues in the current debate about undocumented immigrants.
The immigrant struggle for a better life, for hope, for opportunity, resonates with our centuries-long battle for equality and inclusion. Fairness and justice are no threat to black people's progress. In fact, the African American civil rights movement contributed to the political moment in which the United States reduced racist barriers to immigration and citizenship. That battle continues.
We need only recall the immoral treatment of the Haitian refugees who routinely make life-or-death lunges for the Florida shore in makeshift boats and rafts to recognize the deeply racist and anti-Mexican underpinnings of the current border debate. United States border, economic, and labor policies have been calibrated to seduce Mexican workers to make the very crossing, which now, in one corner of the debate, is being upgraded to a felony.
Black Americans should be concerned about the US-Mexico border--not out of fear of immigrants but because hundreds of people die crossing it each year. We must condemn racist hysteria by calling for justice and inclusion. We cannot allow bigots seeking cover to appropriate the language and the symbols of our historic struggle and turn them into weapons to be used against other marginalized communities. The absence of a real opposition party heightens this threat. The impotence of the Democrats has created the political vacuum in which people who are hostile to all civil rights struggles can pretend to be legitimate spokespersons on race relations.
The future of social justice will depend upon recognizing the commonalities between poorer and working-class people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We will be called upon to lead parts of this fight and we will often need to follow. Right now, it is urgent that we support the anti-racist campaigns of organizations like the National Council of La Raza.