Transcription
A Black History Reader: 101 Questions You Never Thought to Ask by Dr. Claude Anderson
Part 8 or Chapter 8: Immigration and Naturalization
Question 50: Why are the doors of immigration open to Hispanics but closed to Haitians?
The primary reasons immigrants from Haiti are treated differently than Hispanics are skin color and the country's historical role in the development of the Western world. The welcome mat for immigrants has always been based upon a ranking order of skin color, ethnicity, and country of origin. Hispanics, whether in Europe or the Americas, have always been classified as white, speaking Spanish, and therefore entitled to preferential immigration into the U.S. from any country of origin. For Haitians and other persons of African descent, the welcome mat did not exist, except as slaves.
The bias against Haitian immigrants and refugees has a deep-seated historical element that caused great fear in whites in the U.S., for Haiti was the world's first free black nation in the entire Western Hemisphere. When the black slaves in Haiti successfully revolted against their French slaveholders, they became a free, independent nation. This was the first and only instance where slaves were able to break free and establish their own independent nation. No other black nation on earth has ever rebelled and overthrown their white colonial powers.
The slave revolt in Haiti alarmed American President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who were slave owners and supported France in its effort to suppress the Haitian slave revolt, but to no avail. It is remarkable that black Haitians defeated Napoleon Bonaparte's army, which was France's most effective military force. They also defeated the military forces of England and Spain. White slaveholders in the U.S. feared that slave revolts would ignite physical hostilities between white society and the millions of blacks they held as slaves.
The military success of the slaves in Haiti did have a profound effect on slavery and a lasting impact on the way the U.S. treats Haitians today. Slavery was legalized as an official institution in 1789 with the ratification of the United States Constitution. Two years later, in August 1791, Haitian slave revolts took control of the island. Four months later, on December 8, 1791, frightened American slave owners persuaded the U.S. Congress to enact the Second Constitutional Amendment, which granted white citizens the right to have militias and required all white males between 18 and 45 years old to bear arms in case of slave revolts.
The fear of possible slave revolts was omnipresent and triggered Southern states to organize militias. There were few slave revolts in the U.S., but none of them succeeded. The key point in this historical recitation is that the fear generated by the successful Haitian revolt produced hate and fear in whites towards Haitians. Haiti paid a high price for its military success; the country was reviled and feared by all white nations of the world precisely for its successful slave revolts, and Haiti was therefore isolated and crushed into deep poverty.
The difference between the treatment of Hispanics and the treatment of Haitians seeking citizenship in America reflects racism and the lasting memories of the outstanding victories in the Western Hemisphere by the poor, almost defenseless dark people in the most isolated nation in the Americas. The punishment to Haiti for its military achievements and the embarrassment it inflicted on world superpowers is incorporated into America's enduring international policy.
For instance, the 1823 Monroe Doctrine defined any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas as a potential hostile act against the U.S. This prohibits Haiti from receiving much foreign political aid from other countries. They cannot help themselves, and the U.S. will not allow others to help them. As recently as May 2017, The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump's administration was treating Haitians in this country differently from other immigrants to decide whether Haitians here in temporary protected status should be allowed in the U.S. The administration is taking the usual step of seeking data on criminal background and Haitians' use of welfare benefits.
The first naturalization law of 1790 permitted immigrants only from Europe. In the 1960s, Congress modified that law and immigration policies, replacing skin color preferences with countries of origin ranking order based upon the historical numbers of immigrants who have migrated from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and African countries. Since the ancestors of black slaves were never officially classified as or registered as immigrants, the immigration quota for persons from black nations like Haiti was set at less than one percent. Civil rights leaders, who had started making the shift from "black" to "minority" and "people of color," went along with the change in immigration law from "Europe white" to "country of origin." The civil rights leaders did not have the support of sophisticated think tanks and were unable to foresee the devastating impact the new immigration policies would have on native blacks.
The new immigration policy gave preferences to persons from Mexico and poor Central and South American countries seeking political asylum rather than economic opportunities. Using the new immigration focus in the 1960s, John F. Kennedy's administration initiated and approved a Cuban refugee program, which opened the floodgates to millions of Cubans who obtained citizenship in America for political as well as economic opportunities. Nearly 100 percent of Cuban refugees were classified as white; only a few dark or black Cubans entered the United States. Haitian refugees have been treated with extreme prejudice; their escape boats have been intercepted and pushed back into the water, leaving people to drown. Those who made it to the U.S. have been deported, incarcerated, or rejected because of the interpretation that they seek economic opportunities rather than political asylum.
Until Haitian refugees are reclassified and treated in a similar manner to Hispanics, including Cubans, an ethnic group within the category of Hispanics, Haitian refugees will continue to be treated with extreme bias. The 40 million legal and illegal Hispanic immigrants who came to this country did not come to seek asylum; they came here seeking money and a better life. The basis for rejecting Haitians is historical fear, inherent racism, Haiti's absolute poverty, its African-based culture, low education levels, and, most importantly, because an increase in Haitians could increase the political and economic potential of black Americans. The nation's doors are not now and have never been open to all who seek the American dream.
Question 51: Is America now or has it ever been a colorblind society?
America is not a colorblind society, nor has it ever been. It has always been color conscious or color specific, even before it existed as a formal entity. How-minded talk about color blindness and individual merit maintains the racial status quo and reinforces a historical pattern of race-based exclusion. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mistakenly thought the Constitution was colorblind when, in fact, it was very color specific. The drafters knew they were consigning blacks to be property equal to field animals; they intentionally denied blacks the fruits of their labor, education, votes, and personal movement.
So when the Kings and the civil rights movement pushed for a colorblind society, it was lofty rhetoric, and they could not have imagined how those words would be used against their cause. Conservative social forces captured the concept of colorblind equality and perverted the meaning to take color out of race. This well-meaning but unwise rhetorical phrase gave whites a tool to destroy corrective efforts for blacks. The color specific articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution were designed to be the nation's first affirmative action plan for the specific purpose of enriching, empowering, and valuing white skin by distributing to them nearly 100 percent of the nation's wealth, land, and privileges.
The second purpose of the founding documents was to control, exploit, and subordinate all who did not possess white skin. As the nation's need for free labor and later cheap labor increased, the ranking order of skin color preferences merged and institutionalized itself in the social fabric of society and its immigration policies. The intentional allocation of everything of value into the hands of whites created racial inequality, which was used to justify separating whites from blacks in all things. Colorblind rhetoric allowed whites plausible deniability for responsibility for the socio-economic conditions of black America.
Skin color was at the heart of the 1894 case of Homer A. Plessy, a light-skinned black man who believed he had the right to sit in the white section of a rail car but was ordered to move to the black section. Plessy's response was to file a major lawsuit, Plessy v. Ferguson, a case that eventually worked its way into the Supreme Court. The responsibility of the Supreme Court is to uphold the U.S. Constitution; therefore, it has always functioned as the guardian of the racial status quo in America. The court carried out its charge and ruled against Plessy, saying he lacked the required skin color qualifications to sit in its privileged and best seats on the train.
This Supreme Court decision further institutionalized racism and legally marked the beginning of Jim Crow segregation laws. Justice John Marshall Harlan, the only dissenter, wrote the minority position in the court ruling. He argued that the U.S. Constitution ought to be colorblind based upon the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. That was the first use of the term "colorblind" in the law. Justice Harlan was ignored, and mainstream society was racially segregated by law for another 50 years. Affirmative action, skin color preferences, and privileges were maintained for whites during that time period.
Those with white skin continued to own and have access to the best communities, schools, food, housing, medical services, clothing, employment opportunities, and control of government. When the black civil rights movement of the 1960s came, there was a demand from black citizens for the right to share and redistribute some of their ill-gotten privileges, preferences, and resources. Blacks wanted an affirmative action plan to restore the damage done to black people. Like Justice Harlan, they wanted a colorblind society that did not consciously exclude and abuse blacks based on their skin color. Instead, they wanted whites to recognize black skin in a positive way and redistribute resources to them based upon skin color preferences.
Conservatives were not to be outsmarted; they went back to the original social construct of the founding documents and flipped the script on blacks. Whites began to champion the words of Dr. King's dream of blacks being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Conservatives pretended that society was already colorblind and that it would be a travesty to show preference to black skin. Some blacks mounted weak dissent, but as a group, they were outmaneuvered. Policies and laws, therefore, remain very color conscious in favor of whites and colorblind towards black Americans. The concept of colorblindness masks blacks' invisibility and necessity.
Question 52: Prior to the 1960s civil rights movement, what was the stance of black leaders on immigration policies?
Black leaders and activists unilaterally expressed opposition to the nation's open-door policies on immigration throughout the 19th century. These conscious black leaders expressed concern that immigrants were reinforcing the subordination of the native black population, as well as eroding certain rights, privileges, employment, education, and wealth-building opportunities for blacks. The negative impact of immigrants worsened after the Civil War when millions entered the country. After slavery, there was a labor shortage, and one would have logically expected the former slaves, who had been skilled tradesmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, cooks, artisans, and farmers, to fill those jobs. But the country recruited and imported European immigrants instead.
The pattern was just beginning. For more than a century, black leaders had struggled and challenged the white power structure to close the nation's immigration doors. In his famous 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, Booker T. Washington pleaded with white industrialists, businessmen, and politicians not to look to European immigrants to develop skills and work in their businesses, but to look instead to native blacks. Washington pointed out that many already had the skills, attitudes, and experiences to meld into mainstream society. W.E.B. Du Bois was against immigration and spoke frequently about the downside for blacks of 40 million white immigrants coming into the country during the jobs of former slaves and being automatically elevated into the overseeing white management class.
When the black civil rights movement commenced in the late 1950s, the new black leadership dismissed or ignored the opinions of their predecessors. One can only speculate as to the reasons. Perhaps they did not have the foresight to fully understand the politics of displacement that was occurring, were unknowledgeable about the nation's immigration history, and wanted to demonstrate altruism, or they simply preferred to ignore or forget history and go along to get along as much as they could. Whatever the reasons, the new black leadership switched from an anti-immigration stance to a pro-immigration stance. While the reason for this change in position is not clear, it is evident that they made the switch without fully understanding that providing unearned rights and benefits to immigrants chasing the American dream caused native black Americans to be neglected, disadvantaged, and rendered invisible. In all respects, the old black immigration fighters must be turning over in their graves.
Black civil rights organizations and politicians began to pursue alliances with newly arriving immigrants. Those alliances, especially with Hispanics, did not and do not exist. Hispanics firmly deny that such alliances exist, and it takes little analysis to determine that any alliances black leaders presume are one-sided. Black leaders even support policies that benefit immigrant groups at the expense of black people. Many black leaders, for instance, support increased immigration, but immigrant groups such as Hispanics, Asians, or Arabs do not commit to or give support to black issues. There is no reciprocity, and immigrant advocacy groups not only do not represent the interests of blacks, but the very purposes of their advocacy are in outright opposition to black interests.
Why is it that after all these years, leading blacks cannot recognize circumstances that are harmful to their people? Why is it that the people permit those whom they have accepted as leaders to continue doing them harm?
Question 53: How do immigration policies specifically injure native black Americans throughout the history of North America?
Immigrants have entered the country to take advantage of the considerable economic opportunities extended to them and to enjoy the elevated status, respect, and privileges they automatically receive over blacks in the labor force. Since the black descendants of slaves are not immigrants, they are excluded from the privileges, statuses, benefits, and rights extended to immigrants. They must compete with every immigrant for basic rights and life's resources.
Reaching America has been a dream come true for immigrants, but it has been a nightmare for many native blacks and their forefathers. Although a growing number of legal and illegal immigrants are located in the suburbs, most immigrants find residential and commercial space in urban areas. Once they establish a toehold in the urban centers, they then mark and close the space using their language, culture, or religion as barriers to encroachment. When confined within closed communities, they concentrate their resources and build socio-economic enclaves or niches.
Immigrant niches can be found in most urban areas like Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, the District of Columbia, San Francisco, and Chicago. After closing their territories, they mark them in their cultural images as Koreatown, Chinatown, Frenchtown, Japantown, Little Cuba, Greektown, and Mexicantown. As their numbers grow, they spread out and gentrify black areas such as Harlem in New York City, Liberty City and Coconut Grove in Miami, Englewood, Compton, and Watts in the Los Angeles area, and Sweet Auburn in Atlanta. All these formerly black-dominated cities are now predominantly occupied by Hispanic immigrants.
Numerical displacement means diminished economic and political influence for blacks in mainstream society. Since the 1900s, the Hispanic population has increased from 100,000 to 55 million in 2016. They have surpassed and made black Americans a minority. Hispanics boast that they are now the nation's new majority minority and would gentrify urban residential areas along with whites and Asians, displacing blacks.
Economics: The economic impact of immigrants on native black Americans is quantifiable. For every ten percent increase in the number of immigrants, native black income is reduced by three-tenths of one percent. Blacks had an earnings ratio of 0.56 to every dollar earned by whites in the 1950s. Because of the black civil rights movement in the 1970s, blacks' earnings ratio rose to 66 against every dollar earned by whites. However, between 1970 and 1990, there was a 300 percent increase in the number of legal and illegal agents and Hispanics that entered the country, and the ratio of black earnings to white earnings dropped from 66 percent to 57 percent, where it was nearly 40 years earlier. In short, the nine-point economic gains due to the black civil rights movement were wiped out by the 300 percent increase in the immigrant population that occurred between 1970 and 1990.
Employment: Whether the job categories are skilled or unskilled, this nation has a long history of displacing blacks to make employment opportunities for incoming immigrants. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce survey conducted in 1865, over a hundred thousand of the nation's 120,000 skilled artisans were black Americans newly freed from slavery. During the same time, 55 to 65 percent of all Southern farmers were blacks and former slaves. Instead of Lincoln's administration streamlining the five million former slaves, he and his administration chose to enact immigration reform that attracted 26 million Europeans into the country to replace the black farmers and artisans.
Initially, newly arriving immigrants replaced the northern native blacks in the lowest-paying and dirtiest jobs. Later waves of immigrants replaced native blacks in the South as well as the North in skilled trades, artisan crafts, and agriculture-based occupations. For those who would argue that immigrants do not displace black Americans in jobs and employment opportunities, why are so many of the jobs that blacks used to hold in hotels, retail sales, restaurants, airports, trash collection, banks, other local businesses, and all levels of government now staffed by Hispanics, Arabs, and other ethnic groups? Many blacks were displaced by immigrants in business and public offices because they could not speak Spanish or other languages.
The actual unemployment rate for black Americans is nearly 50 percent, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Matters were made worse between 2006 and 2016 when approximately 50 percent of all new jobs went to Hispanics. Where is this economic justice for blacks?
Education: The U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision was supposed to correct damages inflicted on black students for more than 400 years in zero schools and poor schools. But before any major educational improvements could be made, the immigration reforms of 1965 brought in a massive influx of immigrant minority children who began to compete with native black children for resources. There are no constitutional mandates to give newly arriving immigrant children, legal or illegal, accompanying or unaccompanied, educational advantages over blacks.
Prevailing policies and laws, however, give immigrants preferential treatment over blacks. Affirmative action programs were originally designed to correct injustices to one race of people, blacks, by another race of people, whites, to eliminate legal legacies of slavery or Jim Crow segregation. Today, affirmative action programs have been converted into preference programs for immigrants, though most categories of immigrants are white and have never been negatively impacted by the racism and racial conditions that caused these programs to be necessary.
This era can be traced to the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986, which effectively required employers to treat immigrants exactly like native-born citizens. Since nearly 90 percent of all immigrants are classified as white on their immigration records and driver's licenses, why aren't immigrants treated like whites and excluded from affirmative action programs? Why are they categorized with blacks only in instances of affirmative action?
Putting apples and oranges into the same category sets up a situation where immigrants of any race displace blacks from the very programs designed to help them. It is not possible to justify including Hispanics, Arabs, Asians, other immigrants, and women who are the majority in affirmative action programs. Yet in 2016, black civil rights leaders, elected officials at the highest levels, and other members of the black overclass publicly supported immigration reform and granted citizenship to 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants that have entered the country since 1990. The black overclass agreed with those who wanted to reach out and invite even millions more immigrants. Our federal and state governments have reasons to support increased immigration, but they have a moral obligation to avoid and correct the devastating harm it causes native black Americans.
Question 54: Are global diseases that are linked to immigration a threat to black America?
Any plant, animal, or human that relocates into an entirely new physical environment represents a potential danger to the natural or native inhabitants. The easy global movement of people who may be infected with diseases or who come into contact with infected people presents biological dangers not only to black Americans but also to all Americans. In the U.S., there have been increases in drug-resistant microbes, the rebirth of diseases once under control, and exposure to non-native diseases through global travel and legal and illegal immigration into the United States.
These trials and diseases pose a particular threat to black Americans because many immigrants move directly into the nation's major urban centers, where approximately 70 percent of black Americans reside. The introduction of foreign diseases to urban areas allows the disease to spread quickly. Those urban centers often lack adequate medical facilities and hospitals and have lower rates of medically insured populations. Immigrants intimately interact with the native population, performing babysitting and domestic chores in homes, and they become part of the food chain as migrant workers in the agricultural field, harvesting produce, and working in fast food restaurants, hotels, and entertainment centers, often without having health examinations for diseases and other infectious bacteria.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) alert the public to contagious diseases that can and have been imported into the United States by visitors and tourists who have traveled to countries harboring infections. Recent alerts include diseases such as Ebola, Zika, and drug-resistant TB. The CDC website (www.cdc.gov) has a list of diseases by country that travelers might encounter and from which immigrants may bring diseases of concern to the U.S.
In addition to new diseases, the United States has also experienced a resurgence of diseases that were once under control in the native population, such as pertussis, measles, smallpox, and polio. When important diseases suddenly appear, they impose crippling financial hardships on hospital communities and municipalities. In addition to the diseases listed above, there are other new and re-emerging diseases such as avian flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome, West Nile virus, malaria, blood disorders, AIDS, leprosy, cholera, Chagas disease, hookworms, tapeworms, and hepatitis.
Black neighborhoods have been severely weakened by 50 years of social integration, and medical resources are not sufficient to serve their normal health needs. With so many new immigrants and health problems, blacks face dilution of already inadequate healthcare. Dangerous diseases migrate from all parts of the world, and in many ways, 14 to 20 million illegal immigrants are often direct sources. Most are poor and have had inadequate healthcare in their countries of origin, and many enter the U.S. without health evaluations for communicable and infectious diseases.
The CDC labels the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California as hotbeds for diseases that are common in Mexico, Central, and South America. Immigrants that are ill and have serious health issues become a costly challenge. Approximately 43 percent of those under 65 years of age have no healthcare insurance. Although several of Barack Obama's immigration programs, such as the Dream Act, contain provisions for low-cost or free medical coverage for some, a high percentage use emergency rooms for regular medical and dental care, again forcing native blacks to compete with immigrants for services that are meager to begin with.
The cost of uninsured immigrants is passed on to taxpaying Americans, which further strains the healthcare community and has contributed to severe financial stress at some of the nation's finest emergency medical facilities, hospitals, and medical practices. Governments, especially local and state, should stop turning a blind eye to the costly impact that immigrants' health issues and re-emerging diseases are having in urban and rural areas. Immigration has had few meaningful parameters because corporations and various political forces want the doors to stay open. However, black leaders should publicly identify health as an issue, demand protective measures for black neighborhoods, and ensure that stringent health certification is mandated for immigrants entering the country. These measures would provide at least a modicum of protection to native black Americans in the neighborhoods in which they live. Additional information regarding immigrants and healthcare can be found in the medical alert article in the Harvest Institute report, Winter 2016, or at www.harvestinstitute.org.