Here’s a meme that’s popular among Democrats:
Black Americans Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges took actions in 1955 and 1960 so that Kamala Harris, who apparently identifies as “Black”, could take an action in 2024. (Minor point: If we do want to ascribe a broad social trend to an individual, it was primarily Dwight Eisenhower, whose racial ID is unknown, who engineered the desegregation of the U.S. (via Supreme Court appointments and executive orders).)
I’m struggling to see how Kamala Harris’s ascendance to the Presidency is an example of continuity. Harvard economists find that a percentage of Black Americans lose their jobs and their freedom with every batch of low-skill immigrants who come across the border (see “Effects of Immigration on African-American Employment and Incarceration” (NBER 2007); note that these same immigrants provide a $500 billion/year (in pre-Biden dollars at pre-Biden immigration levels) wealth boost to the elite, e.g., those who own apartment buildings or pay wages to low-skill workers).
Isn’t the installation of a child of two immigrants in the White House an example of discontinuity, not continuity? Or maybe we can say that the natural end stage of the civil rights movement is for Black Americans to accept bit parts in a script written by immigrants and their kids?
As a thought experiment, let’s suppose that every position of power in the U.S. were taken by a dark-skinned immigrant or the child of dark-skinned immigrants. Would that be recognizable as the achievement of goals set forth by 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement leaders? If not, why would Kamala Harris taking over the #1 position of power in the U.S. be considered a civil rights movement achievement, as the above meme implies?
Related:
- “Immigration restrictions helped lead to Martin Luther King’s success”: There is much to suggest that the 1924 immigration restrictions started processes that were an important contributor to the success of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in the ending of legalized segregation. … the lower immigration and tightened labor markets brought about economic changes that steadily increased the economic and political power of Black Americans and convinced more and more business leaders to shun segregation. The most visible result of reducing immigration was that northern industrialists could no longer fill all their extra jobs with new immigrants and had to finally open them up to the descendants of slavery in the South.
Phil, you make some interesting points, but here (and in many of your posts) you seem puzzled why these things are occurring or why people act in certain ways. The answers are often pretty straightforward and interestingly Elon Musk (and others) have been repeatedly explaining on X and in other places. Do you not follow what these folks are saying?
Anon: I’ve seen Elon Musk statements on immigration overall (completely inconsistent with his boosterism for population growth!). But I’ve never seen him write about Black Americans being expected to be enthusiastic about their immigrant replacements (who happen to have dark skin). Any examples you can cite by URL?
Phil, I can’t imagine any Black Americans being enthusiastic about immigrant replacements, and I’d guess this is logical to anyone (including Musk). The question is then why blacks have essentially supported this outcome by voting for people who do little or nothing to stop it (and same for other issues that would seem illogical over decades). The answer here is pretty straightforward; Shelby Steele, Musk, and many others have done a great job of explaining this over the the years (follow them on X or elsewhere and see their thoughts). And what is also interesting and notable is that their message appears to be getting through recently after decades of stasis (if we assume that a good metric for this is an increasing % of blacks voting Republican as happened with Trump–will be interesting to see if this trend continues next week).