Bill Fletcher Jr, wrote an excellent piece in the last issue of the Black Commentator. The title and subject was NAFTA, Immigrants and the Discussion That is NOt Happening. In that piece Fletcher does an excellent job on discussing how NAFTA is largely responsible for the lowering of the standard of living for Mexican farmers and is therefore a major cause of illegal immigration.
However; when Fletcher got to the end of his piece he decided to attack one of the victims of NAFTA: The black working class.
I thought a great deal about this recently when I was moderating a debate on immigration within a labor union. The vehemence of some of the anti-immigrant speakers, including - and very unfortunately - an African American woman, was not only deeply unsettling, but equally lacking in any historical context. While the focus of the anti-immigrant speakers was allegedly undocumented immigrants in general, there was nothing in their language that indicated that they were thinking about Irish, Poles, Russians, or anyone other than Latinos, and most particularly, Mexicans. When confronted with this question of NAFTA they had nothing to say. Interestingly, they could also not explain why they had nothing to say about any other ethnic undocumented worker besides Latinos.
It is commonplace in the USA to think in terms of what affects us, and particularly the notion that whatever harms us in the USA must be among the most catastrophic things to affect the planet. Rarely do we stop and think about the actual consequences of the actions of the USA on the rest of the world. Rarer still has been our consideration of how the actions the USA initiates, whether treaties like NAFTA or military actions such as the 1980s Central American wars, end up boomeranging.
Let us examine the problems with the above paragraphs.
I thought a great deal about this recently when I was moderating a debate on immigration within a labor union. The vehemence of some of the anti-immigrant speakers, including - and very unfortunately - an African American woman, was not only deeply unsettling, but equally lacking in any historical context.
Well after telling us how Unions were foremost in the fight against the passage of NAFTA, Fletcher now want's to get mad at Union members for arguing against the fallout of a program that they opposed. I don't think that is particularly fair. But to then get on the case of an African-American woman as if by virtue of being black she is supposed to toe some line that Fletcher has decided was THE hallmark of his worldview is equally offensive. What is even worse is that he never really discusses what the woman actually said rather he gives us a summary of that which he thought was "wrong" and we're supposed to agree with him because well, he's Mr. Fletcher.
The next part is equally insulting.
While the focus of the anti-immigrant speakers was allegedly undocumented immigrants in general, there was nothing in their language that indicated that they were thinking about Irish, Poles, Russians, or anyone other than Latinos, and most particularly, Mexicans. When confronted with this question of NAFTA they had nothing to say. Interestingly, they could also not explain why they had nothing to say about any other ethnic undocumented worker besides Latinos.
Note the use of the term "allegedly." This is a common tactic used against those of us who have issues with illegal immigration. They like to try to say that we are against all immigration or hate all immigrants and want everybody to go home. This is not the case. I would really like it if those on the other side of the argument stop putting words in our mouths. There is no doubt that there are those who are true xenophobes and they ought to be spoken out against across the board, but simply opposing illegal immigration is not in and of itself evidence of xenophobia.
On the next issue, that of immigrants other than those from Latin America, Fletcher decides to throw us a very red herring. Lets throw this fish back in the water. If we look at the following chart
Now it you look at the chart you'll see that 80% of illegal immigrants, as of 2004 come from Latin American countries. By contrast only 6% of illegal immigrants come from Europe. So those Russians, Poles, Irish, are really irrelevant to the conversation. This is not like say racial profiling on the NJ Turnpike or in Maryland where black folk make up about 15% of the driving population but were (are?) stopped at an extremely high rate. The fact of the matter, whether one likes it or not is that if one is discussing illegal immigration one is typically talking about a Mexican or other Latin American national. It is not xenophobic to actually point out a fact. Now if we assume that Mr. Fletcher actually knew this bit of information then we can also assume that Mr. Fletcher had decided to purposefully mischaracterize this African-American woman. Why would he do that? Personally I think this reflects very poorly on Mr. Fletcher.
So even though Mr. Fletcher wants us to think that black folks, well some of us, are oblivious to the consequences of US policy. Well we are. We support indigenous rights in Latin America. We support killing NAFTA or at least replacing it with something far more equitable. But we are not blind to our concerns and are no longer willing to put other peoples needs before ours. Out working class black folk need our support. It is clear that illegal immigration depresses wages for American citizens. It puts stress on urban schools that are underfunded to begin with. It causes housing pressure at the low end of the market.
But I guess these things aren't important to Mr. Fletcher. But I suppose these things are important to that African-American woman who he decided to smear in his piece.
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