This is the longest blog I’ve ever written, so brace yourselves! There’ve been a lot of talks of racism in the headlines lately and what continues to amaze me is how people react to it (or how people on Twitter react to my honesty). Take the new immigration bill in Arizona for example. You can’t help but to see the potential for racial profiling written all over it in big red letters. You automatically think police officers will only arrest people who look Mexican- because apparently only Mexicans can be here illegally; never mind other ethnicities that come here illegally, such as Cubans, Africans, and even some white Europeans. If you read the text of the law (http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf ), it seems to be unfair and biased because phrases like “the gang and immigration intelligence team” or “a reasonable attempt shall be made when practical” imply a tone of racial injustice. But people need to see both sides of the story- why Arizona decided to create this controversial law and how it will impact everyone.
Long story short- someone who was “assumed” to be an illegal immigrant killed a man in Arizona and they wanted a way to deter illegal immigration in the state. Furthermore, they want a way to deter businesses from hiring illegal immigrants due to the economic impact. Not to say this law won’t be effective, but illegal immigrants aren’t the only people who kill. The guy who killed my younger cousin was an American citizen, Americans kill Americans all the time, so to have that reasoning as your first basis for this law is a bit stupid, but I digress. As for economic impact, companies have been outsourcing labor for decades, and they still do especially given the current economy. Why pay an American $10 an hour when I can get 10 people in India to do the same job for the same amount of money? More bang for my buck right? Sure, we’ve got tax incentives to encourage companies to hire more Americans, but some companies will still opt for the cheaper labor.
I do agree with Arizona’s taking this huge leap to try to implement immigration reform on a state level, but I don’t agree with the way in which it is doing it. I don’t agree with the wording of the law because how else are you to “reasonably suspect” someone is here illegally if not first by skin color? In this country, we automatically assume that if you look Mexican you must be an illegal immigrant, or if you look Middle Eastern you must be a terrorist. There’s never been an “if you look white you must be…” so race becomes an issue.
To be clear, I don’t support illegal immigration at all. I think it’s unfair that when it comes to immigration, the phrase “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch” is applied to the extreme. Illegal immigrants give all immigrants a bad name. My parents came here legally from Haiti in the 70s and the 80s and they’ve shared their stories of how long they had to wait to come here due to the paperwork and processing; and those who cut the line by coming here illegally are issuing a slap in the face to those who do abide by the rules, and they make it harder for ANY immigrant- whether you’re from Europe, Africa, Asia, or Mexico- to come here legally because of the stigma attached.
Many believe that the new law in Arizona is a human rights violation because it denies arrested people due process, among other things. I haven’t started law school yet, so I can’t quite comment on that, but what about the human rights violations that occur when illegal immigrants are mistreated, exploited, used, and abused because they are considered nothing but cheap labor? Isn’t this dehumanization a human rights violation, too? Part of this new law will help fight against this because it also aims to deter companies from hiring illegal immigrants or picking up illegal immigrants in a truck for labor. Many illegal immigrants come here and they are killed- by both Americans and other illegal immigrants, sometimes worked to death, sometimes simply because they are illegal- and when they are buried by the State sometimes their family members aren’t notified, and sometimes their names aren’t even written on their tombstones. This law will actually help illegal immigrants, too.
As controversial as this law appears to be, we must give Arizona the benefit of the doubt that the intent wasn’t based solely on race. Whether or not it was based on race, racism will continue to be an issue in this country as long as we let it; which brings me to my next racism in the news issue- the third year Harvard Law student who sent out an email stating she believes blacks are on average predisposed to be academically inferior to whites. Perhaps she forgot about the current President of the United States of America who, like her, also served on the Harvard Law Review, but again, I digress. Come on already! It’s 2010 why are we STILL talking about this stuff? Moreover, why are we STILL letting it get to us? And by us, I mainly mean black people, but I’ll get to that later. What angered me at first was how the media handled this “scandal.” The media made her out to be such a racist person by only including that one line in the news (didn’t some actress or somebody say “we’re all a little racist sometimes?”). But after reading her email in its entirety (I lost the link, sorry, but feel free to poke around abovethelaw.com, you’ll probably find it there) I realized she’s not racist. She was stating her opinion, which was based on some things she’s read throughout the years, and she said more in her email than that blacks are dumber than whites. She mentions socioeconomic challenges, which also contribute to her opinion, and I totally agree with her. I’ve experienced it.
Being a poor child of Haitian immigrants, I didn’t have the luxuries and economic opportunities that many of my white counterparts had. Sure, I went to Catholic school my whole life, and went on to graduate from college, grad school, and will be starting law school soon, but none of that came easy. Most of my white counterparts did well on their SATs because they could afford pricey SAT prep courses. I could not, and I performed horribly. But to be fair, I took a pricey LSAT prep course and STILL did horrible on my test because I’ve always been a bad test taker (but I still got into law school!). Fortunately for me (and I use fortunately in the least offensive way possible), I grew up in a racially indifferent environment where I was always the only black kid in class, and I was never made to feel different, therefore I worked just as hard, if not harder than the white kids did. And if anything, my mother instilled in me that I SHOULD work harder- not because I was black but because I was CAPABLE. Whenever I’d bring home an A- on a test, my mom would ask “why didn’t you bring home an A+?” My mother made me work hard as if to prove that you didn’t have to be able to afford pricey test prep courses and tutors to excel in school, you just had to put your mind to it and BELIEVE that you can accomplish anything you want.
That encouragement is something that’s lacking in many black families today, in conjunction with growing rates of poverty, growing rates of single parenthood (aka the socioeconomic challenges the Harvard 3L probably was eluding to), and worst of all this defeatist attitude that you are a product of your environment thus you are destined to fail, too so why bother. That’s a load of crap, and it’s an excuse to do nothing and it pisses me off! If my dad had it his way I’d probably hate white people. He always tried to tell me that white people hate black people and I shouldn’t trust them, nor be friends with them. Being the spiteful person I am I did the complete opposite. I liked white people, I trust them, and some of my closest friends are white people because I never saw the hate my dad saw. And besides, from the time that white people brought slaves to America there has been this hatred and mistrust, understandable, but #1) as mentioned before, “one bad apple shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch” and #2) it’s 2010, come on already!
I feel like many black people are waiting for a time when everything will be completely equal in the world, where we can TRULY believe that “we will be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character” to apply themselves harder and go after their dreams and be the best them they can be. That time may never come, yet many blacks will still use this inferiority complex and these socioeconomic challenges as an excuse not to try. If hypothetically, since the 1600s or so whites have hated blacks and deemed them to be inferior, then CLEARLY a time when they won’t feel that way isn’t soon coming, so why not try ANYWAY? And most importantly, why buy into what OTHERS think of you? What’s important is what you think of YOURSELF! So what if someone says you’re black, you’re stupid. It’s not what you’re called, it’s what you answer to, so rather than pout and adopt a woe is me attitude, how about proving them WRONG!? I’m VERY spiteful and competitive, and I personally LOVE when people doubt my abilities because it only motivates me to make sure I prove them WRONG. Why aren’t our black kids growing up with attitudes of confidence and helping them to realize their own strengths and what talents they can contribute to the world regardless of what ANYBODY says about them?
Why, in 2010 is EVERYTHING so focused on race? Why can’t people be racially colorblind? I’m biased because I grew up around whites and blacks who got along and never made each other feel like one was better or inferior than or to the other, where race wasn’t an issue, where the whites were just as black as the blacks were white. If that can happen where I live, why can’t that type of unity and mutual understanding and respect happen in the world?
