----- Original Message -----
From: jubilee shine
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 3:43 PM
Subject: [DopeXResistance-L.A.] Black Sentinel gets in ted hayes ass
The 'Choose Black America' Anti-Immigration Ploy: Is
Ted Hayes the New Ward Connerly?
by Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad
Jun 27, 2007 at 05:13 PM
Illegal immigration reform is a salient issue in
America today. Particularly among the Republicans who consider this issue a
border crisis. Congress effort to legislate a solution was met with a last
minute Republican filibuster stalled a viable solution to addressing the 12
million resident aliens in the country, a measured naturalization process for
those who qualified. It was said that it was too much like amnesty. But now the
Republicans have pulled out their latest secret weapon, former homeless
advocate now Black Republican, Ted Hayes. Hayes, who came to the nations
attention as a homeless advocate in the 1990s, has abandoned the homeless
movement that has taken on a disproportionately African American hue (at a time
when Los Angeles is the homeless capital of the nation) for a new Black
movement. Illegal immigration. Hayes, the only homeless advocate I ever knew
to have Laker floor seats, and the only one to take homeless people on a field
hockey trip to Europe, never engaged in anything Black when he was a homeless
advocate. But now he wants to be the African American voice standing arm and
arm with the Minutemen movement, border patrol civilians who take it as their
civil right to defend their property. Heres a man who claims to have no
property, representing (or used to represent) property-less people, suddenly
looking to protect the rights of property owners and national citizenship.
Whats wrong with this picture?
Or maybe the more relevant question is, whats behind
it? Ted Hayes, coincidentally, has become a Republican and has interjected
himself in a fight that has a racial elementWhite conservative minuteman
protecting America from illegal invasion that assaults their American values.
Though Mexican immigrants represent less than forty percent of all the illegal
immigrants that enter the nation each year, theyre the only ones being called
out. And the Southern border is the only one being walled off while the
Northern border remains open to the same terrorist threats. Theres something
openly racist about this. So what better way to hide the hypocrisy of this
contradiction than to interject a counter-racial component, that Blacks are
being hurt by illegal immigration. The same argument, and the same strategy was
used a dozen years ago, when Affirmative Action came under attack. Being
attacked by Whites made it a race issue that would be perceived as racial so
Republican conservatives came up with a Black face to sell a bad bill of
goodsthat affirmative action was bad for everybody, including Blacks. Ward
Connerly became the face of the anti-affirmative action movement and the
colorblind politic has led to the deconstruction of affirmative action. Ted
Hayes and his Choose Black politic is becoming to the anti-immigration
movement what Ward Connerlys Civil Rights initiative was to the
Anti-Affirmative Action movement. Connerly is paid, by conservative think tanks
and Republican policy forums, over a million dollars a year to overturn
affirmative action state by state. How much is a homeless man being paid to go
around the nation to round (or rouse) up Blacks against immigration reform? Ted
Hayes is on record stating that illegal immigration is the biggest threat to
Blacks since slavery. But we know the biggest threat to Blacks has been this
colorblindness that Republican conservatives use these new Black Republicans to
espouse policies that undermine the progress of the historical race disparities
African Americans have spent 140 years trying to make up. And with GOP support,
suddenly Ted Hayes is Black again.
For the last year, as immigrants have pressed the
citizenship question and others have tried to press African Americans into a
position on this, Ive insisted that this is not our issue. There is nothing to
be lost, or gained, in African Americans coming out for, or against,
immigration reform. There are more issues that impact African Americans
nationally that we could be vocal about. Immigration reform is not one of them.
Its an issue for conservatives concerned about illegal immigrations impact on
national security. For social and fiscal moderates, its the economy and
immigrations impact on the suppression of wages. Both are legitimate issues.
However, for poor peoplethe issue has been around the competition for jobs and
the illusion that immigrants are taking jobs from good hardworking Americans. I
say this position is illusionary because immigrants arent taking jobs from
Blacks or anybody else. They make jobs where there are no jobs, and only take
jobs for wages that nobody will work for, including Blacks. Moreover, Blacks
and Latinos both are impacted by wage suppression that using illegal labor
brings about. Attacking each other would benefit neither, and most Black and
Latino groups recognize this. So far, every time Hayes has showed up somewhere
with his Choose Black rhetoric, he is met with greater number of unified
Black and Latino groups working together to improve economic injustice in poor
communities. If choosing Black America is the advocation, why would it be
choose illegal immigration over the economic exploitation that promotes the
wage suppression and wealth disparities that exploit both races. If Hayes wants
to advocate for justice, why would he side with the injustice that continues to
blame the poor for the nations problems when the top one percent of population
hold 40 percent of the wealth? Maybe its because the pay is better to advocate
against the poor and oppressed than it is to advocate with them. Hayes would
have much more credibility advocating for the homeless.
But hes given up the homeless gig for one that pays
better, attacking immigrants and trying to interject Blacks in the conflict to
deflect attention anyway from those who have issue with Mexican immigrantsbut
none of the other immigrants coming into the country. Hayes anti-immigration
advocacy is a ploy that most Blacks arent buying into. But, like Ward Connerly
before him, Hayes has been bought and sold to the anti-immigration forces as
the Blackface in the movement. Its worked before.
Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad n is a national columnist,
managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and
author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. He
can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com.
Last Updated ( Jun 27, 2007 at 05:15 PM )
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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