Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Blacks Don’t Blame Immigrants for the Boss’s Crimes
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
22 Aug 2019
Blacks Don’t Blame Immigrants for the Boss’s Crimes
Blacks Don’t Blame Immigrants for the Boss’s Crimes

Large proportions of African Americans registered strong opposition to building a wall on the southern border, keeping undocumented people in limbo, and mass deportations.

“Most Blacks do not blame immigrants for high Black unemployment rates or for depressed wage levels.”

African Americans differ only slightly from Latino Americans in their attitudes towards immigration, and are in some ways more opposed than Hispanics to Donald Trump’s policies at the southern border. A comprehensive release of Gallup Polls conducted on immigration since 2006 confirms that the great ethnic political divide in the United States is between English-speaking, U.S.-born whites and virtually everybody else. 

On most political issues, Hispanics -- who can be of any race -- line up somewhere in between Blacks and whites, with Blacks consistently taking the more “left” or “progressive” position. (U.S. ethnic alignments on political issues generally reflect objective, real-world social and economic data, with Hispanic unemployment, incarceration, income, wealth and health statistics placing them in between Blacks and whites.) Although the recent attention garnered by the Black anti-immigrant group ADOS may have raised questions about Black attitudes on the subject, the Gallup polls show remarkable agreement between Hispanics and African Americans on immigration questions.

“The polls reveal striking similarities in the two groups’ positions on immigration and citizenship.”

Apparently, Gallup does not routinely tabulate responses by race/ethnicity – a growing problem among corporate pollsters, some of whom now group all “minorities” together while others release only “general” statistics, painting a distorted, too-white national portrait. In its in-depth immigration overview, Gallup compared general national responses from January of this year with white, Black and Hispanic answers to the same question back in June of 2016. Assuming that no earth-shaking changes have occurred in Black-Hispanic relations in the past three years, the polls reveal striking similarities in the two groups’ positions on immigration and citizenship.

Asked where they stand on “deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country,” Blacks and Hispanics spoke almost in unison. The polls showed 76 percent of Blacks were “opposed” (36 percent) or “strongly opposed” (40 percent) to the proposition, while 78 percent of Hispanics were “opposed” (46 percent) or “strongly opposed” (32 percent). Although 2 percent more Hispanics were generally opposed to immediately kicking out all undocumented people, significantly more Blacks (40 percent) than Hispanics (32 percent) took the “strongly opposed” position. Only 61 percent of whites were either “opposed” or “strongly opposed” to wholesale deportation of “illegals.”

“Blacks and Hispanics spoke almost in unison.”

On the question of “allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time,” the two ethnic groups were closely aligned. The poll showed 84 percent of Blacks either “favored” (36 percent) or “strongly favored” (48 percent) a road to citizenship, while 92 percent of Hispanics “favored” (50 percent) or “strongly favored” (42 percent) the idea. Again, Hispanics were generally somewhat more in favor, but a greater proportion of Blacks lined up in the “strongly favor” column. A total of 82 percent of whites “favored” (45 percent) or “strongly favored” (37 percent) a path to citizenship.

On “building a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border,” a subject that presidential candidate Donald Trump was loudly trumpeting in 2016, Blacks were equally as generally opposed to the concept, but significantly more fervent in their opposition than even Hispanics. For both groups, 82 percent were generally opposed to the wall. But 55 percent of Blacks were “strongly opposed” versus 40 percent of Hispanics. The order was reversed in the less vehement opposition column, with 27 percent of Blacks and 42 percent of Hispanics “opposed.”

“Fifty-five percent of Blacks were ‘strongly opposed’ to a wall versus 40 percent of Hispanics.”

The pattern is clear for all three questions. Black Americans closely agree with Hispanics on immigration issues, giving the “progressive” answer to Gallup’s inquiries as often, or almost as frequently, as Latinos. However, significantly larger proportions of Black respondents were adamant in their positions, “strongly” favoring or opposing the propositions presented to them. 

There is no schism between Blacks and Hispanics over immigration, and we can conclude from the polling data that most Blacks do not blame immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, for historically high Black unemployment rates, or for depressed wage levels. If Blacks blamed immigrants for these conditions, it would show up in the numbers. Instead, large proportions of African Americans registered what might be interpreted as militant opposition (“strongly”) to building a wall on the southern border, keeping undocumented people in limbo, and mass deportations. African Americans appear to feel more “strongly” about such things than Hispanics, although the Gallup poll shows that 85 percent of Black respondents and their parents were born in the U.S., versus only 32 percent of Hispanics. (The figure for whites is 88 percent.)

“If Blacks blamed immigrants for depressed wages, it would show up in the numbers.”

What Gallup tracked, unwittingly, were the statistical footprints of the progressive and enduring Black political consensus – deeply informed by the Black Radical Tradition. Black people take progressive positions on immigration despite the fact that wholesale immigration of low wage and undocumented workers does depress wages and degrade working conditions. That’s what the rulers intend it to do, and the effects are intimately experienced by workers at the bottom of the barrel, where Blacks have been stuck since they arrived on these shores. For most of Black American history, we were the workers that were blamed for every crime against labor committed by the owners of capital and industry and their political servants. The same white workers that blame immigrants for the precarity inflicted on today’s society by the bosses, once similarly scapegoated Black people. It is to African Americans’ credit that the vast bulk of us reject such chauvinism. 

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

Immigration

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

The Capitalist Imperative Driving Cruel and Bipartisan US Migration Policies
Daniel Melo
The Capitalist Imperative Driving Cruel and Bipartisan US Migration Policies
16 February 2022
Capitalism's need for labor is the determining factor in immigration policy.
BAR Book Forum: Abigail Andrews’s “Undocumented Politics”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Abigail Andrews’s “Undocumented Politics”
21 August 2019
Migration can take radically different forms depending on the political dynamics in migrants’ hometowns and in the destinations where they end up.
Black Workers and Immigrants: Borrow a Page from Marx
Ken Morgan
Black Workers and Immigrants: Borrow a Page from Marx
15 August 2018
“Marx blamed the rulers of colonialism and those that exploited Irish workers for lower wages when they got to England, and not the exp
“These Are Not Our Kids”: The Racial Capitalism of Caging Children at the Border
Salvador Rangel
“These Are Not Our Kids”: The Racial Capitalism of Caging Children at the Border
25 July 2018
“The Trump administration takes every opportunity to divert attention from the fact that there are a lot of people suffering in poverty
Political Theater and the Immigration Crisis: A Two-Party Problem
Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
Political Theater and the Immigration Crisis: A Two-Party Problem
04 July 2018
“No oppressed people or group in the US knows what it is like to be separated from their families, locked in cages, and murdered by the
None of Us Are Free if One of Us is Chained
Paul Street
None of Us Are Free if One of Us is Chained
20 June 2018
“If the federal government ‘caging children’ and ‘separating families’ doesn’t put you in the streets, what will?”

More Stories


  • The US Continues Escalating in Ukraine
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The US Continues Escalating in Ukraine
    01 Feb 2023
    The U.S. got more than it bargained for after instigating the Ukrainian conflict. The Biden foreign policy team grows more desperate and their plans become more dangerous as they reckon with the…
  • EXCERPT: Howard University: Every Black Thing and Its Opposite, Kwame Ture
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    EXCERPT: Howard University: Every Black Thing and Its Opposite, Kwame Ture
    01 Feb 2023
    Kwame Ture reminds us that the Black university is a place of contradictions – and a potential site of struggle.
  • Ilhan Omar is Not Mama Africa
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ilhan Omar is Not Mama Africa
    01 Feb 2023
    The new Speaker of the House announced he will remove Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. The attack from republicans has given her image a boost, but her record shows the…
  • Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten Orchard called Capitalist State Machine?
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten Orchard called Capitalist State Machine?
    01 Feb 2023
                                                                                                         Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten 
  •  BAR Book Forum: J.T. Roane’s Book, “Dark Agoras”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: J.T. Roane’s Book, “Dark Agoras”
    01 Feb 2023
    This week’s featured author is J.T. Roane. His book is Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us