Collaboration

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Blacks and immigrants: from ‘either-or’ to ‘both-and’

While tea-baggers dominated the headlines over the past few weeks, another movement was quietly working to weave together communities that some want to see pitted against each other. The Black Immigration Network, a coalition led by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration; Which Way Forward; and the Third World Coalition of the American Friends Service Committee, recently announced itself as “the first national network concerned about immigration issues and racial equity issues surrounding both African Americans and immigrants of African descent.”
By bringing visibility to the shared interests of “native born” Black Americans and Blacks as immigrants, the Network counters the factionalism that have stymied strategic alliances in the past. The mission statement of Which Way Forward, a project of the Chicago-based Center for New Community, declares:

“While we recognize that throughout the history of the United States there have existed tensions between the African American community and immigrant communities, Which Way Forward rejects that any past, present or future frictions between ‘Blacks and Latinos’ or ‘Blacks and immigrants’ grant permission to ignore our responsibility in building an America free from political, economic and social discrimination based on race.”

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