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October 5, 2006
Response to A Racial Rift that Isn't Black or White
October 5, 2006
Response to “A Racial Barrier that Isn’t Black or White”: published October 3, 2006 by the New York Times
Hispanics who migrate to the South should be humbled by the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and
segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.
This racism is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. In most cases Hispanics have a
choice to migrate to the United States to seek a better life for their children. Unlike African
Americans, especially in the South, they have not been discriminated against or denied basic
civil rights in their own countries. African Americans are citizens of the United States who have
suffered discrimination, lack of access to jobs, housing, and employment based primarily on
the color of their skin. Despite the economic hardships they have faced, they too are working
to ensure better social, economic and political opportunities for their children. They seek a life
free of race-based discrimination and segregation. To have to revisit the types of tension
mentioned in this article from people who are in no better economic or political shape then they
is audacious to say the least.
The fact that they do not feel the need to learn English, respect the history, culture and
customs of the community to which they have arrived is unacceptable.
It is not a lack of work ethic among Blacks, which has been used as an excuse by racists and
employers seeking to profit from immigrant labor. It is the Hispanic belief in their “whiteness”
that gives them a superiority complex, enabling them to look down on African Americans. They
use American racism to their advantage in order to prosper.
African Americans are citizens and tax-payers of this country, deserving of wages
commensurate to the work they do. Why should they be disrespected by immigrants, have
their livelihoods threatened, and endure racist insults simply because an employer can turn a
handsome profit by hiring immigrants to work long hours for less pay, and who are not
cognizant of, nor do they care about labor laws? It sets the civil rights struggle and the labor
movement in this country back hundreds of years and it is morally wrong. How ironic that
Hispanics use the term “moyos” (little insects) to describe the men, women and children whose
blood, sweat and tears stain the soil that Hispanics leave their countries in droves seeking work
on.
It is reprehensible that immigrants treat American citizens that way.
Posted by renee at October 5, 2006 12:59 PM