Let’s replace them with the Latinos
Of course everyone by now knows about the pro-illegal immigration rallies that were held on May 1st. Otherwise known as May Day. Many Local and National Muslim Organizations joined in on the rallies because they feel by supporting this that this, by extension, will automatically build more support for more immigration from the Muslim countries.
I suppose I can understand where they are coming from and why they took this stance. Just as a note, can you imagine the reaction if Muslim illegal immigrants had taken to the streets waving the flags of various Muslim countries demanding more illegal immigration?
Anyway, I have a different take.
First, this debate has been basically framed as the good people who are for more immigration vs the racists who want to keep the country as white as possible.
While there are certainly those who are racists on the anti-illegal immigration debate, there are also those who have legitimate gripes. In spite of that, because of how this debate has been framed, I still feel compelled to say that Allah knows that I have nothing against Latinos.
But here is the message that I have gotten from this entire episode: “The Latinos are better than blacks.”
“Let’s exchange the Latinos for the blacks. They work the lower end jobs better, they complain less, they commit less crime, they are harder working and less welfare dependant.”
No one is saying it, but that is the message I got from rallies. There are several problems with this argument of exchanging a “bad minority” for a “good one”. (Whether one wants to admit it or not, that is what MANY are thinking)
#1 - Unlike ILLEGAL immigrants, African-Americans are actually citizens, so whether one likes it or not, the interests of those that are ALREADY citizens need to be looked after FIRST.
Remember, groups of people are different culturally and in other ways, and these differences in many cases lead to conflicts. See: Malays vs Chinese, and Indians vs native Fijians, etc. With the Latinos coming in and taking the lower level labor jobs cheaper, where does this leave the African Americans? They are still here. Instead of trying to pretend to replace them, why not try to help them deal with their litany of problems instead of bringing in more competent competitors and creating more resentment. Which brings me to problem #2 with this argument.
#2 - The pro illegal immigration lobby’s argument only makes sense if you could simply swap the Latinos for the African-Americans. Oh, nowhere to send them. So this is NOT A SWAP as many people tend to think of it as.
Some blacks, stung by racism from some Latinos are even joining groups like the Minutemen, who have been recruiting blacks to their cause.
But many blacks express views that are wildly at odds with the black leaders and the polls. Black callers have singed the phone lines at black radio talk shows with anti-immigrant tirades. They continue to bombard black newspapers with letters blasting illegal immigrants. They complain that Latinos are hostile, even racist, toward blacks
And this reaction is in spite of data that has found that African-Americans are the most open of all the ethnic groups to others. Tamara K. Brown, in her review of George Yancey’s book “Who is White” says:
Contrary to the popular image of Blacks as racially restrictive, Yancey discovers that Black respondents are the most open to all other races. Yet despite being the most receptive to other groups, Blacks in general are rejected by all non-Black groups – whites, Latino/as and Asian Americans. While some assume that whites will be closed off to anyone not white, Yancey’s research show that white respondents are more accepting of Latino/as and Asian Americans than they are of Blacks. In turn, Latino/a and Asian American respondents are fairly receptive to one another as well as whites. Overall, Yancey’s findings reveal that whites, Latino/as and Asian Americans do not tend to reject one another as possible neighbors or their kids’ spouses, but all three groups show a general resistance to Blacks in these social roles
And this is exactly why I feel that, barring massive intervention on several levels, the American Muslim community is also headed for the same black/non-black dicotomy. This is the story within the story, and the reason why I think that this story, besides the obvious immigration issues, should have some interest to the American Muslim community.
Filed under: Changing World, Race
I think there some truth in your argument.
I remember a political science professor once asking me, “Do you know how the Irish became white?” (our discussion was on immigration movements in 19th century US history) They told the Protestant whites, “at least we are not black.”
His point was that in US history, minority groups gain accension into the mainstream by creating and exploiting the ‘other.’ (which you have spoken poignantly about in previous postings) Sadly, it is construction of this dichotomy between the minority group (in that instance the Irish, who were seen by their Protestant counterparts as drunkards and Pope worshippers) and the black American community that functions as a vehicle for upward social mobilization.
If your insight into the recent Latino situation is true, it may be history repeating itself.
I am not so sure if that is happening in the American Muslim community yet; the problem there, at least according to me, is the fragmented psyche.
That is an excellent example, and yes, it is happening again with the Latinos and Asians.
One point on all of this is that with Latinos taking the jobs traditionally held by African-Americans, this leaves their situation only that much worse. THAT INCLUDES African American Muslims.
So this means that African-American Muslims must get their act together. This is why I am stressing this point. Things are getting bleaker and the outlook doesn’t look good
Ok, what about the fact that there is an element of truth to it. Latinos in general particular the ones from mexico and central America do work very hard on the job, are more reliable than their American counterparts Black or white but particularly Black. So businesses rely on them to keep their companies stable and profitable. But I still lean more to stemming illigal immigration only because it does lower wages in the low skilled jobed, and employers take advantage of the situation by holding the illegal status over their to keep them from complaining.
Anyway do you think its the goverments job to deal with the issue or something that AA community needs to wake up and address themselves
Um Abdillah
I am not denying the truth in any of those arguments. They are for the most part true. Culturally and otherwise, the Latinos have many advantages over the African-Americans, but not over the whites. This is what I was alluding to when I said the groups are different.
This is why the Latinos are slightly above the blacks but still well below the Asians and whites on the socio-economic ladder. In other words, you won't see many tensions between the Asians and Latinos fighting over low-wage/low skilled jobs. And you won't see much talk about how Indian doctors and engineers are taking African American jobs. Just look at the situation in Fiji too. This is key to understanding my arguments
I am saying that affluent whites see this, in their minds, as an upgrade. But the problem with this argument is that you can't pretend the blacks don't exist anymore.
The argument is that by bringing in these more competent competitors, they are making the situation of another people THAT ARE CITIZENS worse.
Do I think that its the goverment's job to deal with the issue? Only where it concerns ILLEGAL immigration. Theoretically that will at least put the low wage job market back into some order. But the box is open
The African American community DOES INDEED need to wake up and understand that they are falling further and further behind and teach their kids that they will have to get good educations and higher skill sets to compete on higher levels in the job market.
I thgink that black and latino leaaders want to form a colation but when you talk to the black and latino man on the street you will hear a different story and in many cities latinos have been used to neutralize black political power and we also have to say that latinos are not a monolithic group; in NYC relations are good between blacks, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in general but go out West and you will see black-Mexican relations are poor.
Today’s NYTimes notes the growing unease for some balcks on immigration. I think there are more gains than losses over this issue. As Jesse Jackson put it in the article:
Tariq, on your point of jobs going to the immigration community, I say that yes that yes that will happen in one way or another, particulary low-skilled labor orientated jobs but it may not lower wages amongst them as Um Abdullah suggests. For instance, a recent study published in the NYTimes argues that the Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye:
The study’s results are debatable: but worth considering.
Moreover, I feel that the US economy will have to deal with larger structural changes in the labor market. For instance, many manufacturing jobs have been outsourced recently and even jobs that put Americans in the middle class such IT services have are now being provided by Indians. Economists are suggesting that these changes are inevitable consequences of globalization and for a long time the US was the biggest winner of globalization but now other countries are catching up and leveling the economic playing field. The implications created by such changes means that over time, there will be trend towards services (financial, information, technical, etc.) as the largest component of our economy.
How do these global changes in the economy affect the African American community?
The question goes back to education. With an economy that will demand more highly educated and trained laborers, African Americans who are not highly educated will find themselves unemployed by the masses. They should not scapegoat the immigrant workers for the short-term gains of low skilled labor but should develop a plan to train members of their community to become part of the emerging highly educated workforce.
To draw a lesson from a pervious immigrant experience, when the Irish came to American they worked side by side with the blacks in many positions such as construction workers of the New York City subway tunnels. Back then, the Irish were competing with the African Americans for jobs; today it is the Latino community. In the future, the Latino community may become the ‘new Irish’ but the African American community will remain static. These observations pose some lager questions as to why the African American has remained static and continues to remain static.
Tariq, your concern should not lead you to worry about the Latino community. The Latinos currently outnumber the number of African Americans and they will be very potent political force in the future. In fact, it would be foolish if they Black community antagonized the Latino community over these issues and led to poor relations in the future.
Instead, the African American community has to look inward and ask why they find themselves economically pitted against the latest batch of new immigrants? The answer according to me is the lack of educational progress. Every new immigrant community in the US maximized the educational system of the US to establish itself. The African American community (along with Native Americans as well, but lets just stick to African Americans) has been unable to replicate the educational success of Jewish, Irish, and Asian immigrants.
Umar,
Latino/Hispanic is another overbroad group used to describe those who live south of the border. There are many groups within that group. The term is almost useless. Some count like 135 or something like that.
Puerto Ricans and Dominicans have are “mulattos”. Meaning that they have more African blood (along with Native American and European) That is probably part of the reason they get along better. Many light-skinned blacks “look Puerto Rican” because they probably have about the same bio-genetic mix as a typical Puerto Rican (African, European, Native) Ditto with darker Dominicans who are about the same genetically as a darker skinned African-American. So there is a lot of cross-over. I would even go as far as to say that, language aside, Puerto Ricans may identify more with African-Americans than they do Mexicans.
Mexicans are mostly “mestizos” meaning that they are mixed Native American and European with about 5% African blood.
So basically we are talking about two totally different groups of people.
Adu Abdir Rahman
As you alluded to, that NY Times article about the economic impact of illegal immigrants was highly dubious and widely critisized for not taking into account the huge cost of living difference between California and Ohio.
I agree with you 100% on the other points. This has been my point in all my posts regarding African-Americans. However, the outlook does not look good. And that includes the Muslims. Many of them think that this entire conversation has nothing to do with them!
They put little to no value in education at all and this will hurt in the long run.
I been a part of programs that have tried to help them get their act together. Throughout the 90s there were programs like Job Corps, "Free the Children" and other programs that were in many cases FREE(!!!) that had job training and taught professional skills. Many of the programs died out from LACK OF INTEREST. People were out there begging "Please come get some job training for FREE!" … Some came for a few weeks, thought it was too hard and left, other were not interested at all. Only a handful really took advantage of the programs and went on to make something of themselves.
I am hoping that indeed we can look inwardly, particularly as Muslims. It is appalling to me to find so many African-American Muslims who have these exact same issues, think that this doesn't affect them. You'd be stunned to know just how many African-American Muslims think this way
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