The Forgotten Letter of Coretta Scott King
In any age of rapidly changing political and partisan perspectives, it is perhaps well to remember how the immigration debate was originally framed
back in 1986 when the Reagan/Bush Amnesty plan, put forth to placate the demands of Corporate America for cheap labor, was first enacted. Ignored at the time were
the protests which began as early as 1969, when Cesar Chavez and members of the United Farm Workers marched with the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale to the border with Mexico to demand the cessation of employers’ practice of importing illegal labor as a means of cutting wages and reducing thousands of their workers to the most grinding poverty.
The government’s response to such protests and demands for economic justice?
In the 1980s at a time when African American teenage unemployment approached a disgraceful 80 percent, Big Business cynically petitioned the INS for more visas for cheap foreign labor on grounds that there was an “unskilled labor shortage”. They largely got what they demanded. While
Democrats courageously resisted such blatant attempts to lower the wages of legal Hispanic and African Americans
, Reagan Amnesty apologists claimed that Americans wouldn’t stoop to perform the “dirty work” that only illegal workers would perform [<--- your current argument], ignoring the obvious fact that unemployed legal workers gladly and gratefully collect garbage and work in the coal mines if decent wages were paid.
The Black Leadership Forum is a coalition of the chief executive officers of the nation's oldest and largest African American organizations and coalitions.* We represent hundreds of thousands of African American registered voters, nationwide. Each of our organizations seeks the full and unfettered participation of African Americans, other disadvantaged minorities and the poor, in all sectors of our society. We have led and continue to lead the national effort to open and include into the American mainstream, "locked-out" persons of all races, ethnicities and socioeconomic strata. We find intolerable discrimination based on race, color, national origin, gender, religion, physical or mental capacity and socioeconomic condition.
While we have divergent views on the complex issue of employer sanctions
, the undersigned Black Leadership Forum members and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement* [<--- oh look, legal hispanics agreed] are united in three respects: 大 The chief executive officers of the following organizations are members of the Black Leadership Forum: NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Urban League, National Urban Coalition, National Council of Negro Women, A. Philip Randolph Institute, NAACP, OICs of America, SCLC, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, National Newspaper Publishers Association, National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, National Pan-Hellenic Council, National Conference of Black Mayors, Congressional Black Caucus.
1.
We are fully committed to the elimination of the root causes of national origin dis crimination [<--- this is where we fought for yall ungrateful asses] under the Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), as well as discriminatory impact.
2. We believe that there are a number of effective ways to remedy discrimination resulting from IRCA, without tampering with employer sanctions. Some measures we support are contained in the Report and Recommendations of the Taskforce on IRCA-Related Discrimination and in the 1990 GAO Report on Imnigration Reform. Employer Sanctions and the Question of Discrimination.
3. Finally,
we desire to discuss with you and other members of Congress, the importance of employer sanctions to the economic security of African American and Hispanic workers. [<--- still advocating for others, because it was RECIPROCAL]
We are concerned, Senator Hatch, that your proposed remedy to the employer sanctions-based discrimination, namely, the elimination of employer sanctions, will cause another problem--the revival of the pre-1986 discrimination against black and brown U.S. and documented workers, in favor of cheap labor-- the undocumented workers.
This would undoubtedly exacerbate an already severe where economic crisis in communities there are large numbers of new immigrants.
Finally, we are concerned that some who support the repeal of employer sanctions are
using "discrimination" as a guise for their desire to abuse undocumented workers and to introduce cheap labor into the U.S. workforce. America does not have a labor shortage. With roughly 7 million people un- and double that number discouraged from seeking work, the removal of employer sanctions threatens to add additional U.S. workers to the rolls and of the drive unemployed. down Additionally, it would add to competition for scarce jobs wages. Moreover, the repeal of employer sanctions
will inevitably add to our social problems and place an unfair burden on the poor in the cities in which most new immigrants cluster--cities which are already suffering housing shortages and insufficient human needs services.
The Forgotten Letter of Coretta Scott King
www.huffpost.com
I'm gonna spam this in every relevant thread, I encourage yall to do the same. I'm so sick of the insults. They act like they respect the Civil Rights generation, but go blind whenever I post this. This letter is from 1991! Be so for real, how many of yall family came over in the mid 90's? Exactly.
Our universally vaunted elders made the same exact argument we're making today.
what do you think when we say #BOTHSIDES mean???
I digress maybe I’m confusing you with another poster. But the fool above me is definitely one of them
When the last time you been to Harlem, breh? You realize black Americans have been pushed out of the economy there, right? Or do you not care?
