Why Black workers should support immigrant rights
By John Parker
Published Apr 29, 2007 6:37 PM
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 issuelinking 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.
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.
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 (see article on page 6 on this history).
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.
This year's May 1 Boycott rally in Los Angeles includes Cynthia McKinney as a keynote speaker and is demanding an end to these raids and deportations as well as demanding justice for the survivors of Katrina victims and an end to police and state terror against the Black community.
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.
Please join Cynthia McKinney and others on May 1 at 12 noon at Olympic and Broadway in Los Angeles and let's build that strong united movement for jobs, education, health care and against U.S. war.
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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