Black Americans Should Not Support Illegal Aliens’ False Civil Rights Claims
Kevin Fobbs
This summer the U.S. House of Representatives will be holding hearings on what to do about the millions of illegal aliens that are in the United States, including here in the state of Michigan. Blacks in Michigan, Ohio, New York, Georgia and all over America have to be wondering, did we just lose another place in the line of American opportunity on May 1st?
On May 1st hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens took to American streets to essentially blackmail America into supporting their alleged “civil rights” which sent up at least a half dozen red flags in the black community. I’m quite certain that thousands of black mothers and fathers in metro Detroit – who, by the way, are here in this country legally -- who are struggling to obtain a decent education, or affordable housing, or quality health care or a job to support their family just had to wonder why 12 to 20 million illegal aliens think they should suddenly jump ahead of them in hijacking their rights as citizens to the American Dream.
What exactly is a “civil right”? What must one have been deprived of, and under what conditions are these civil rights to be earned or obtained? There is a marked difference between the blood shed, sacrifice made and the entitlements earned by the black civil rights experience of the 19th and 20th century struggles and the current claims of millions of illegal aliens.
So as we reflect during Independence Month this July, the civil rights which each black family earned generation by generation, struggling as citizens under threat of lynching, under threat of fire bombings, under threat of murder… but as citizens is being compared to illegal aliens who want “civil rights” that are not only not earned but they aren’t warranted without citizenship at the expense of our citizen’s independence!
Here we go again…
This isn’t the first time some folks who were not brought against their will and without the “open and obvious” ability to group them by their skin color to systematically deny their rights tried to pin its “civil rights” entitlement to the coattails of the black struggle for civil rights in the hope that leaders like Rev. Jesse Jackson and millions of black Americans would fall for the rouse. Recently it was gay Americans who claimed several years ago that their struggle was the same as Americans of African decent. It didn’t work.
Even Rev. Jesse Jackson had to admit to no real connection to the threadbare attempt to compares the gay experience to the black struggle as if by some miraculous transformation they or any other group who had not gone through the same valiant struggles should somehow be awarded a “Civil Rights Badge of Constitutional Entitlement” earned and fought for by generations of African Americans since and even before the Civil War.
Now comes another group attempting to attach its claims to black civil rights struggles. The illegal alien movement wants to claim that the 14th Amendment protections apply to them and more importantly to the estimated 600,000 anchor babies in our nation that are incorrectly eventually given full citizenship status.
What is disturbing is that the illegal alien agenda is not a civil rights agenda. The illegal alien agenda attempts to equate evading our border patrols to deserving a civil rights badge of martyrdom. Now 12 to 20 million illegal aliens who for 25 years have simply walked across, swam across, or were driven under cover of darkness across our nation’s border feel they have endured the same comparable experience to the countless harrowing “Underground Railroad” trips made by Harriett Tubman or Sojourner Truth through slave states to convey slaves to freedom.
Of course there is no logical comparison, but there are some black leaders who attempt to make a connection and in their effort are failing black people when they cheapen their worth. This open support and advocacy for illegal alien rallies which demand more and more American resources, more boycotts, more walkouts… at the expense of far too many black Americans who struggle daily for jobs, decent education and housing is wrong… wrong… wrong!
Where are the courageous black leaders of a century ago such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois, who urged American industry and businesses to turn to black American workers? Would those same leaders today be seeking support for illegal immigrant labor and their rights over those of black unemployed or young black adults looking for their first job, first home, first opportunity? Is that fair to any American whose forebears came to this country and worked legally to obtain a place in American society?
I have to ask Rev. Jesse Jackson about his defense of illegal aliens’ rights being put ahead of black Americans who have suffered racism for far too many generations.
Should the several hundred thousand who marched in Chicago on May 1st be given Rev. Jesse Jackson’s son’s seat in Congress seat because they were loud enough to be heard over the quiet cries of his constituents who have earned the civil right seat on the Freedom Bus? You have to wonder what Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. would say during these summer illegal immigration hearings should they come to Chicago’s south side.
In 25 years, while illegal aliens have been stealing across the border, black Americans have to be wondering over that same span of time just where are the entry-level jobs for them? Black Chicagoans have to be wondering, with far too many students leaving the public school system each year, should precious educational resources from Illinois or Washington be spent on millions of illegal alien students who by law should not be here, but because some political and black leaders’ fear of breaking a political correctness infraction, black and white American children may and will lose out on educational resources to help level the playing field of their own constituent’s achievement?
For 12 years I served as a board member in Wayne County, Michigan for one of the largest social service agencies in America. I can tell you right now that I can not think of a single black family who received much needed services in order to help keep their family’s body, soul and spirit together, would have or should have given up their essential financial supports, their job training and their educational benefits which would help get their family to get back on the right track toward raising their family up from poverty so that illegal aliens could benefit from their entitlements.
I’m sure these families on welfare have to be wondering just how much more should they take from an America that is willing to let millions of illegal aliens blackmail our nation, walk out on the country for a day and demand protections for their families, for their children that the illegal aliens’ own government back in Mexico should provide them… but gladly shows its legal citizens the “Yellow Brick Road” to our nation’s pocketbook.
Well black America, maybe its time for you to begin a nationwide “Walk In”.
If millions of illegal aliens can demonstrate on the backs of black Americans, push you out of line, and take the legacy of Rosa Park’s dramatic act of civil disobedience in sitting down for earned civil rights, then take a page from their book.
If millions of illegal aliens can walk out on America… Black Americans … Let’s “Walk IN” for our civil rights!
Let’s give our children and our families and our communities and our jobs and our veterans and our legacies a well-deserved “Walk In” and show all Americans what all citizens, and especially black American citizens of our nation can do.
No, this is not the nation that our true civil rights heroes struggled against racism, and against racial marginalism and against economic deprivation so that maybe, just maybe, in a generation or two their heirs would have an opportunity to succeed and inherit the fullness and richness of the American Dream only to be kicked off the bus and out of the line.
No, I don’t think there are black Americans who should stand and wait while millions of illegal aliens’ whose only struggle was to cross America’s border and take the birthright of black Americans and their ancestor’s civil rights legacy without a fight, without a comment and without a struggle. We must say no… not this time… not this way… and not to our people.
Black America send a wake up call to the millions of illegal aliens who want your place in line and leave you still trying to play by the rules. You will stand up and walk into the line. Walk into your civil rights and walk into your jobs, your schools, your hospitals, and your child’s scholarships and into your future. After 300 plus years of struggle, I think black America is entitled to its civil rights. Walk In and Stay In.
# # #
Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac). View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist to the Detroit News. He is also the host of The Kevin Fobbs Show -- see www.kevinfobbs.com. Write him at kevin@kevinfobbs.com.
