Why Black Workers Should Support Immigrant Rights
by John Parker
"It is essential that a strategic alliance be made between
the African-American and Latin@ movements."
This article originally appeared in WorkersWorld.org.
As Saladin Muhammad of the Southern-based Black Workers for
Justice stated so well, the Black struggle is fundamental to any struggle for
justice since it is African slave labor that created the economic base and the
political base to control the vast stolen wealth in this country.
That struggle makes this national liberation movement of an
oppressed people permanently attached to the general working class struggle for
liberation. This is why it became the standard bearer and representative of all
the struggles for self determination of oppressed people and labor rights here
in the U.S.
The demand for self determination was dramatically
highlighted by the immigrant community, led by Latin@ workers on May 1, 2006.
And, by calling for a boycott and utilizing aspects of a general strike, it
made it clear that this was also a labor issue – linking it, like the Black
liberation struggle, to the overall struggle for working-class liberation.
Given the potency of these two movements it is essential
that a strategic alliance be made between the African-American and Latin@
movements that is concrete and deals with the most pressing issues facing both
communities.
In terms of supporting immigrants, some in the Black
community ask the question, What have they done for us?
This is an understandable question given that the Black
struggle in this country has been ignored to the point of condoning genocide.
Just look at how organized labor failed to rise to the occasion during the
Katrina crisis, nor did the progressive movement in a big organized and
consistent way. Although there are many examples of individual organizations
and activists who were heroic in that struggle, a movement in defense of
Katrina survivors has yet to get off the ground.
“There is an unrelenting drive by the ruling class in
this country to divide Black, Asian and Latin@ people.”
The ruling class makes great use of these inadequacies in
our movement and plays the same game on Black, Asian and Latin@ workers that
was played in the 1930s on white workers to convince them that they had no
interest in uniting and building solidarity with Black workers. Although only the
bosses controlled the amount of jobs available, they pushed the idea that Black
workers were stealing their jobs and community resources. Because of this they
were able for many years to convince white workers that Black workers should
not be in their unions. By creating division through the further promotion of
white supremacy and the super-exploitation of Black workers they were able to
keep the union movement weak and the amount of jobs, wages, benefits and
quality of life of white workers as low as possible.
Today, as if following the same script, there is an
unrelenting drive by the ruling class in this country to divide Black, Asian
and Latin@ people through sensational stories of atrocities by one against the
other in the corporate media.
Regarding Mexican immigrants and their children, the message
says that what helps Mexican people hurts Black people. And, what hurts Mexican
people is no concern of African Americans. In addition, the powers that be tell
us that Mexican and Chicano people have never done anything in defense of Black
people.
The only way you can come to this conclusion is to ignore
history.
“Police harassment and killings in our neighborhoods affect
us both.”
It was not too long ago that African slaves here would
escape, not only heading north during slavery, but south to Mexico. They did
this because the Mexican people and their government provided sanctuary and
included those African refugees into their families. Even though the U.S.
government threatened war against Mexico for this, the Mexican government did
not budge.
We have much in common. We are each other’s neighbors in
most parts of Los Angeles. Therefore police harassment and killings in our
neighborhoods affect us both. And, as the government and local authorities step
up the raids and deportations that separate Latin@ families (as the slave
blocks did to African families during slavery), Black people in this country
will be affected. In these roundups that leave children as orphans, the only
criteria of these armed immigration gangsters who storm into workplaces and
houses in the Black and Latin@ communities is this: do you look non-European?
Now there are calls from Congress to deputize local police
as federal immigration agents. Imagine how threatened we in the Black community
will be if the LAPD gets a hyper boost to their powers of harassment and lethal
force.
Rosa Parks showed the way by inspiring the Montgomery Bus
Boycott. That movement was responsible for lifting the quality of life of every
working person in this country. That is the potential of this latest boycott.
Parker is West Coast coordinator of the International Action
Center and Coordinating Committee member of the National May 1 Movement for
Worker and Immigrant Rights (www.maydaymovement.blogspot.com)
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