Are Some Human Beings Illegal?

Reed, who intends to run for mayor of Atlanta in 2009, is certainly not stupid enough to imagine that he is protecting black jobs. All the measures to strip foreigners of civil and human rights, to marginalize them and make them fear jail or deportation at a moment's notice only make them more desirable employees. When given a choice, employers always prefer a fearful, compliant work force with few or no rights to an aware one with enforceable rights. Just having them around, even if an employer chooses not to hire them, effectively lowers everyone's wages.

A reader named Gloria took exception to us. She wrote

I totally disagree with you. This is not a black, white or brown issue, it is not about race. This is about legality, about respecting laws, sovereignty and borders. If people want to come to the USA, or any other country for that matter, looking for a job and a decent living, they need to have a permit or visa to enter the country. Please do not twist the subject.

Another reader put it even more baldly. George Wilson wrote us this one sentence email.

How do Black Americans benefit from having illegal aliens in our country?

Good questions. As African Americans we ought to understand better than anybody how white supremacy works and how language, which frames the way we all think, is a potent tool of oppression, or of liberation. To start with, we need to purge the phrase "illegal aliens" from our vocabulary. Anybody who uses it within earshot ought to be challenged promptly and publicly, just like you would in a case of the unauthorized use of the N-word.

Aliens are from Jupiter. White America defines people as "aliens" in order to justify treatment unfit for a member of the human family, just as our ancestors were once labeled "property," allowing "owners" to buy and sell us like cattle. For those so unable to free their minds from the box of white racist legalism that they cannot part with the adjective "illegal," we should insist that they follow it with the correct noun that says what these folks really are. Illegal persons. Illegal people. Illegal humans.

Read More