Why So Few Blacks Join Immigration Rallies
At last week's immigration march on Washington, tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied around the Capitol Building, calling for legislation that would afford legal status to the millions of illegal immigrants living and working within the United States. While official crowd estimates for such events are notoriously unreliable, the New York Times noted that "the demonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall."
Many, if not most, of the rally attendees wielded protest signs--both homemade and professionally manufactured--or wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Change takes courage" and "Illegals are humans." Still others carried flags--American, Mexican, Brazilian, French, and almost everything in between. And while it seemed as if practically everyone had a unique way of showing their support for reform, they also had one very notable similarity: The crowd was overwhelmingly Latino, with chants of "Libertad ahora!" filling the air as frequently as "Freedom now!"
To be sure, knowing the statistics--76 percent of America's illegal immigrants are Hispanic, according to the Pew Hispanic Center--a majority Latino presence was to be expected. And according to the Population Reference Bureau, in 2005, there were only 2,815,000 foreign-born blacks in America (compared to nearly 18 million foreign-born Hispanics). But in Washington, D.C., estimated to be the home of more than 150,000 Ethiopian immigrants and their descendants, the lack of black protesters was downright odd. Ultimately, it raised an important question to consider in the days leading up to the Obama administration's grapple with America's immigration problems: Why don't black immigrants have an affinity for the reform movement?
One thing we do know is that, despite their relatively small presence, black immigrants are often the most upwardly mobile ethnic group functioning in the United States today, even more than foreign-born white Americans. For instance, as journalist Clarence Page noted in 2007's "Black immigrants: an invisible model minority," in 2000 "43.8 percent of African immigrants had achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe, Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S. population as a whole." In 2005, a fifth of Caribbean or Latin American-born blacks in America had degrees. And according to a 2006 study by sociologists at Princeton and University of Pennsylvania, of the black students attending Ivy League colleges, 41 percent were either immigrants themselves or children of immigrants.
If the statistics are to be believed, then it would seem that there's some truth to the quip that a Jamaican immigrant offered while Page was researching his article: "I'm too busy working two jobs to worry about the white man's racism."
Many, if not most, of the rally attendees wielded protest signs--both homemade and professionally manufactured--or wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Change takes courage" and "Illegals are humans." Still others carried flags--American, Mexican, Brazilian, French, and almost everything in between. And while it seemed as if practically everyone had a unique way of showing their support for reform, they also had one very notable similarity: The crowd was overwhelmingly Latino, with chants of "Libertad ahora!" filling the air as frequently as "Freedom now!"
To be sure, knowing the statistics--76 percent of America's illegal immigrants are Hispanic, according to the Pew Hispanic Center--a majority Latino presence was to be expected. And according to the Population Reference Bureau, in 2005, there were only 2,815,000 foreign-born blacks in America (compared to nearly 18 million foreign-born Hispanics). But in Washington, D.C., estimated to be the home of more than 150,000 Ethiopian immigrants and their descendants, the lack of black protesters was downright odd. Ultimately, it raised an important question to consider in the days leading up to the Obama administration's grapple with America's immigration problems: Why don't black immigrants have an affinity for the reform movement?
One thing we do know is that, despite their relatively small presence, black immigrants are often the most upwardly mobile ethnic group functioning in the United States today, even more than foreign-born white Americans. For instance, as journalist Clarence Page noted in 2007's "Black immigrants: an invisible model minority," in 2000 "43.8 percent of African immigrants had achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe, Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S. population as a whole." In 2005, a fifth of Caribbean or Latin American-born blacks in America had degrees. And according to a 2006 study by sociologists at Princeton and University of Pennsylvania, of the black students attending Ivy League colleges, 41 percent were either immigrants themselves or children of immigrants.
If the statistics are to be believed, then it would seem that there's some truth to the quip that a Jamaican immigrant offered while Page was researching his article: "I'm too busy working two jobs to worry about the white man's racism."
posted by Adesina at
4/05/2010 03:39:00 PM
1 Comments:
NAFTA! What does it have in common with drug trafficking and illegal immigration? Last night it was made all to obnoxiously clear to me and everybody else who watched the very revealing National Geographic cable channel. Its made blatantly obvious that--FREE TRADE--from Mexico, is more important than the protection of the population of the United States by our own politicians. Each day thousands of 18 wheelers cross the border, to the gargantuan profit the owners of large American corporations with products manufactured the other side of the border. Thus cutting out the American worker and higher wages paid. But amongst that "Free Trade" is hidden large quantities of every conceivable narcotic, that the majority slips undetected past our undermanned, underfunded border. The border fence is an absolute parody when Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano tells the nation that the border is far more secure? That's yet another joke thats on citizens, expressly the Americans who live in the border region.
Communications is limited to Sheriffs and police enforcement, DEA, the US border Patrol because their is no single designated frequency and never have enough men-women. THIS IS THE TIME WE MUST INSIST ON EVERY BORDER STATE, PICKETING ARMED NATIONAL GUARD, TO REINFORCE THE US BORDER PATROL. This is an absolute fabrication, because the TV documentary showed the tracks of drug smugglers called (Mules) hiking across millions of acres of desert and open range. One farmer, exposed to the viewer the miles of a three-stranded, rusted barbed wire, shallow river crossings and the hundreds of tracks of illegal aliens crossing into his land. The politicians can pretend that the border between us and them is sealed, but it is not a practical joke to the ranchers. They explain they cannot leave their homes, unless they are armed and has been this way for ten years or more.
Its a literary a horror story of homes ransacked, cattle fences cut and piles of human garbage left behind. Everybody has a price, which includes the environmentalists who remain quiet to trash left in the desert. The whole truth resonated throughout the majority of the independent media, when a elderly Rancher, a humanitarian was slain for some obscure reason. Found dead slumped across his ATV, the investigators followed the footprints back to the border line and suspect drug traffickers? Just a month ago Homeland Security resources were cut that included further construction of the fence. The lies have reflected back on the politicians pushing for another outrageous mass Amnesty, as the separating fence between Mexico and the US, should have been 2 barriers. NOT ONE? With security patrolling tracks in the middle. But instead we got a fence that doesn't exist in many places, where drug pedestrians and illegal aliens can slip through with ease. Some illegal aliens enter our sovereign nation to work, but millions find its simple to get free hand-outs from Liberal run state assemblies.
It's all to easy to fool the man -women in the street, who have never viewed the FENCE? Just like E-Verify that rejects illegal nationals from the workforce or the local police enforcement program 287 (g) It's like a repeat performance to inform the public that the people they voted in to office are working for their interest, when in fact they are pandering to a corrupt foreign government or the open border organizations. The list is long, but they are headed by Sen. Reid, Sen. McCain, Speaker pelosi, Sen. Graham, Sen. Schumer as all are involved as an advocacy of illegal immigration. WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BORDER FENCE, go to AMERICANPATROL
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