What About The Impact On My Community?

This past month has been an interesting time for those that take seriously the impact that the civil rights movement has had on the American cultural and political landscape. Many have said that the protest, marches, and demonstrations that are being executed by the Latino community are akin to the demonstrations of the civil rights movement in the sixties.

I can see the point that some are trying to make, however, in my opinion, the differences are so obvious that it causes me to think that maybe I've entered into the twilight zone. The first obvious difference is simply the fact that in the case of the civil rights movement, legal citizens were within their legal right to protest the unconstitutional treatment that they were receiving. In reality, many of the issues were resolved by the Civil War and the subsequent Civil Rights bills that were passed after the war. Unfortunately many wanted to deny black folk the newfound freedom that was validated by the civil war. Illegal immigrants have no such constitutional right to protest.

The descendants of the African slaves found themselves in a situation with no alternative but to seek a resolution to the oppression inflicted upon them everyday. (in light of the failure of the ’Back to Africa’ movement) The illegal immigrants came here illegally seeking a better life, and they have found it, hence their desire to remove the stigma of being here illegally. I cannot say that I blame them, if I were in their shoes, undoubtedly, I would probably attempt the same thing. I find it interesting that the media uses every term it can to avoid saying ‘illegal‘ when referring to illegal immigrants.

Many have attempted to buttress this goal by using many different kinds of spurious arguments to support this position. Even the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, was reported as saying "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work, are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States." Now it may be true that some do not want to do certain kinds of work, however, I personally know a lot of black folk that do all of the different kinds of work that the President of Mexico thinks we don't want to do.

Even John McCain, a Republican, said that the illegal immigrants were taking jobs that nobody wanted. He even had the audacity to offer the crowd fifty dollars an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona. Man please, let me tell you something, I and many others I know, would shovel human waste out of an old fashioned toilet for fifty dollars an hour. And listen to this, when a man in the crowd took him up on the offer, he weakly responded with ‘you can’t do it, my friends’. He seems to have forgotten that Americans of all races have always done what others said could not be done. Have these people forgot that they are supposed to be representing Americans? Maybe that is the deal, the politicians see that they are losing their automatic lock on the Black vote so they going after some new voters. Just imagine, one stroke of the pen and you’ve got several million voters that would be grateful to vote for you or your party if you just do the right thing.

Listen, I am not against legal immigration, the Latino community or anybody else for that matter. I know people of many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds that I consider friends. I trust that they consider me their friend as well. Does my friendship with others require that I sacrifice that which is good for my people? I think not. That would not be friendship, that would be altruistic genocidal folly. (feeling good about looking out for others while destroying ourselves) It just seems to me that our politicians are not counting the cost, of the black community economically, of this line of thinking. If there was the political will in Washington, a fair and balanced plan could be devised that would help all parties concerned. However, if the short-sighted ideas that the politicians want to implement wreck the economy, it may not affect many of those sitting in their ivory towers of comfort and ease, because they have financial options. As a black man I have one question, what about the impact on my community? Has anyone thought of this, does anyone care? Well, I have, and I do.