Thread: Blacks speak on amnesty -- softly

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Blacks speak on amnesty -- softly
Clarence Page - Columnist
Fri 06/02/2006 07:01PM
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WASHINGTON -- A group of black leaders vigorously opposed to anything resembling amnesty for illegal immigrants unveiled themselves at the National Press Club in late May. The most notable quality that I noticed about the group of educators, organizers and commentators was how unknown they probably are to most other black Americans.

Instead of a high-profile civil rights establishmentarian like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, for example, the group included the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, conservative author of the 2003 book ‘‘Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America.’’

Yet, although they are only beginning, at best, their arc upward in national prominence, the group called Choose Black America expresses an opposition to illegal immigrants that is hardly unfamiliar in black barbershop and hair salon conversations that I have heard. They see President Bush’s plan for amnesty and guest workers as ‘‘a disaster for all Americans that will hit black citizens the hardest.’’

Bush’s line that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans ‘‘are not taking’’ was ridiculed as a ‘‘flimsy excuse’’ by James E. Clingman, a columnist, University of Cincinnati professor and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. ‘‘Pay us a living wage,’’ he said, ‘‘and we will work for those jobs.’’

It is worth noting that Choose Black America is the second minority-based group created by the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which favors a crackdown on illegal immigration. In April, FAIR helped create ‘‘You Don’t Speak for Me,’’ a national group of Hispanic Americans who also oppose amnesty for illegals and criticized this spring’s huge immigration rallies.

Yet, while polls also show blacks to be as diverse as other Americans in our immigration views, I am often asked why black Americans have not been more vocal in the heated debate to resolve too starkly different House and Senate immigration bills. The House measure emphasizes stronger border protection and law enforcement. The Senate bill allows a path to citizenship that House hardliners call ‘‘amnesty’’ and refuse to accept. While Bush appealed last week to lawmakers come up with a compromise, each side seemed more deeply dug in. Yet, black lawmakers have largely stood on the sidelines, an apparent reflection of their mostly-black constituents’ attitudes.

A Pew Research Center poll in April, for example, found about half of black respondents agreed that immigrants today ‘‘are a burden because they take jobs, housing, etc.’’ Yet, a larger majority believed Latin American immigrants are hard working and expressed more sympathy with their plight than white respondents did.

A century ago, black leaders as diverse as the conservative Booker T. Washington and the liberal W.E.B. DuBois, a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called for sharp limits on immigration until the descendents of American slavery could be fully employed.

But since the 1960s, coalition-minded black political and civil rights leaders have called for a greater emphasis on humanitarian values and less on border security. The Rev. Al Sharpton, for example, has joined with Christine Chavez, daughter of United Farm Workers founder Cezar Chavez, to expand a national black and Hispanic coalition that started in Los Angeles last year. Their aim is a united effort for jobs, housing, education, healthcare and control of gangs.
As angry or, at least, skeptical as many African Americans may be about the pressure that illegal immigrants put on the market for low-wage jobs, our passions as a political community remain remarkably cool on the issue. Some of us may complain about it, but few of us appear to be basing our votes on it.
The same does not appear to be true for President Bush’s core voters. He proudly made a guest-worker program a key issue at the start of his second term, but immigration soon has turned into a no-win political hot potato that divides his base. A tough immigration bill risks alienating the Hispanic and other ‘‘compassion voters’’ who were attracted to his ‘‘compassionate conservatism’’ in 2000. A lax bill that sounds like amnesty -- or no bill at all -- risks alienating tough-law-enforcement voters.

With both sides deeply dug in, fall elections rapidly approaching and both Bush and Congress suffering from low poll numbers, the prospects for an immigration reform bill this year appear bleak. Yet, the issue is not going away. At present, our immigration policy continues to look and sound like make-believe: It looks tough on paper, but in reality it is broken and too hot these days for our political establishment to handle. We may chase the immigration issue back into the bushes for a while, but like newcomers desperately sneaking across our borders, it won’t stay hidden for long.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.

I don't care if your skin color is SKY BLUE PINK. Everyone is going to have to take a stand.

I found Choose Black America's Website.

http://www.chooseblackamerica.com/