Immigrants, Blacks Must March as One
Courtesy of the National Action Network (First Published in the New York Daily News)
By the Rev. Al Sharpton
As the fate of 11 million so-called illegal immigrants hangs in the balance, some African Americans have questioned the prominent role that myself and others have been playing in the debate, suggesting that our focus on immigration reform will compromise the unfinished battle for true racial equality.
The tensions are real.
Just last month, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters' Los Angeles office was picketed by blacks accusing her, Jesse Jackson and me of "selling out" to the immigrants. Since, I have engaged in a series of heated discussions with fellow civil rights leaders over this issue - and have been repeatedly confronted on my radio show by African-American callers expressing a range of reactions from disappointment to bitter opposition regarding my support of immigrants' rights. I have little doubt that what registers in the news media is the tip of the iceberg. Discussions are surely even more searching and intense at African-American kitchen tables around New York and across the country.
Yet these concerns aren't just misplaced - they're dead wrong, and worse, they give credence to a dangerous right-wing attempt to divide two communities in equal need of passionate and effective representation.
It is past time for all African Americans to understand that our interests and those of immigrants are not at odds. In fact, more often than not, they are one and the same. Is there some merit to the argument that low-income workers have lost jobs to undocumented immigrants and would face still stiffer competition if more were to legalize? Of course. But the same could have been said years ago by forces opposed to women entering the workplace on equal footing to men. Yet that narrow economic lens would have been the wrong one through which to view the equal rights movement.
Those truly concerned about economic fairness would be better off targeting businesses that exploit and underpay illegal immigrants to the detriment of American workers. We should also look at corporations that actively engage in outsourcing American jobs. We should be criminalizing the businessmen who profit, not making the victims who are ill-paid suffer twice. All too often, those who would pit our communities against one another draw the battle lines as "African Americans vs. Mexicans." That's a myth. In New York, the face of immigration, including illegal immigration is Mexican, African, Asian, Caribbean, South American, Dominican and more. They are married and often have children with members of our community who -- if criminalized - could be deported or have their job options severely limited.
Finally, let's remember that there's a larger social and cultural trend at work here. It was African-Americans who, more than a half-century ago, took to the streets en masse to put an end to discrimination based on color. And it is we who have worked tirelessly to keep the protest movement alive despite the stifling of free speech under the current administration. It is no wonder that when we see people's human value questioned and their legal status denied, those of us whohave spent decades fighting for justice, respect and equal citizenship would rush to their aid.
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