It took no time for the video to go viral. The video caught a handful of Latino immigrant protesters in Los Angeles purportedly shouting the N-word and other racist slurs at a Black police officer at a demonstration.
Within a matter of hours, the video got more than one million views. It was quickly picked up by a widely read online African-American news outlet.
The passion and heat that the demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents aroused among many African American is no surprise. I got an avalanche of responses on my Facebook page to the question “Do Blacks have a stake in the anti ICE demonstrations?”
That was part of a larger question I raised about the significance of the ongoing battle over immigration rights.
The answers were mixed with a slight edge toward a firm “no.” Or as one respondent bluntly put it, “It’s not my fight.”
But is it? And did he really reflect the feeling among a majority or even a significant minority of African Americans toward illegal immigration?
The answer is mixed, conflicted and loaded with vested civil rights sentiments and interests. If anything, the debate over whether Blacks should link hands with Latino activists in the immigration battle seems age old.
It first burst to the surface more than a decade ago in California. A Field Poll taken then on the issue found that Blacks by a bigger percentage than whites and even American-born Hispanics, backed liberal immigration reform.
The day after the poll’s release, a spirited group of Black activists marched in front of the Los Angeles office of outspoken Black U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters. They protested her firm support of citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The protesters claimed that most Blacks opposed illegal immigration. They denounced mainstream civil rights organizations and Black Democrats for allegedly selling out Blacks. It was a painful example of the deep fissure that the illegal immigration debate opened among Blacks.
The poll, however, was accurate. And in the years since then, similar polls have shown that most Blacks express support and sympathy for illegal immigrants and reform measures. That should not be a surprise, either.
The majority of Blacks instinctively pull for the underdog, especially if the underdog is poor, non-white, and perceived to be a victim of discrimination. The majority of illegal immigrants fit that bill and much more.
Many come from countries plagued by civil war and economic destitution. They work jobs that pay scant wages with minimal or non-existent labor protections.
Blacks suffered decades of Jim Crow segregation, violence, and poverty. Many liken the marches, rallies and political lobbying by immigrant advocacy groups to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.
Then there’s the faint but fond memory of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968. The aim was to unite Blacks, Latinos, American Indians and poor whites in a campaign for economic justice. Against the opposition of some Blacks, King actively courted Latino leaders.
Blacks also cringe at the thought that they could be perceived as racial bigots. When pollsters ask Blacks their opinion on issues that deal with civil rights and racial justice, they reflexively give the response that will cast them in the most favorable racial light on these issues.
Yet the protesters that picketed Waters then and in countless private utterances since then on illegal immigrants, many Blacks have expressed animosity toward them. Some of the respondents on my Facebook page almost gleefully cited the paucity of Blacks in the current demonstrations in L.A. as convincing proof that Blacks are sitting out this fight. To say the least this is a dubious assertion.
Still, the sore point with them is almost always jobs. They blame illegal immigrants for worsening the dire plight of young poor African-American males.
The National Urban League’s annual State of Black America reports confirm that Black males suffer a jobless rate double and triple that of white males in some urban areas. Their unemployment numbers are also substantially higher than those of Latino males.
Some economists and employment studies finger illegal immigration as a big cause of the economic slippage of low and marginally skilled young Blacks. But job loss is not unique to Blacks.
Unskilled workers of all ethnic groups, including white unskilled workers, lose jobs as the number of unskilled laborers increase — regardless of whether those in the expanding pool of unskilled workers are illegal immigrants or native born.
Even though illegal immigration has little or no adverse economic impact on the urban poor, many fervently believe that it does. When an issue inflames passions and fears, belief can blur reality. That is plainly evident in the blistering comments that many Blacks make on Black radio talk shows slamming illegal immigrants.
Some on my Facebook page even implored Blacks not to join the L.A. immigrant rights protests.
Civil rights leaders and Black Democrats wholeheartedly support immigrant rights and denounce ICE raids. They are right.
They also see it as a chance to hit back hard at President Donald Trump’s full-blown assault on civil rights protections and gains. They are right. However, there’s no denying that other Blacks clearly believe that when it comes to immigration protests, “It’s not my fight.”
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “Conned: Why MAGA Nation” (Middle Passage Press). He also is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report Facebook Livestreamed.
