Immigration Reform, White Supremacy, and Racial Self-hatred

"Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. " - Dr. King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Dear friends,

In light of the all of the brouhaha, rearding the issue of immigration law reform, for those of us who “lack the complexion to get the connection” (as the legendary Muhammad Ali used to say), we have a major problem with fighting against systemic racist oppression and exploitation, due to the fact that we are often our own worst enemies, because of our self-hatred. That is, from non-European American store clerks who treat us differently than they do European American customers to drive-by shootings, both our feelings and acts of self-hatred make it difficult for either African American or other non-European American men or women to form genuinely loving relationships with each other, of any kind, much less make us be able to encourage our youth to get along with each other.

In other words, we see a mirrored image of our own self-hatred, when we look at those who look like us. Hence, in the White Supremacist culture of the United States, the whole idea of “immigration” has deteriorated into an attack against non-European Americans, while disregarding the historical shenanigans that have been and still are played by Europeans, from Ireland to Russia, who come to this country and get citizenship, up to this very day, with far less scrutiny or concern.

Nevertheless, we non-European Americans must learn to love ourselves and our fellows. Most of all, we must begin to love life itself, as opposed to conceding to our inadequacies and insecurities, allowing ourselves to be disrespectful towards , as well as distrustful of, each other,.

Now, when I use the term "love", I’m talking about it as an "act of being" as opposed to a "state of being". That means that, at least to me, love is only effective as a verb - not a noun. In other words, in this society, love as a "state of being", is a passive experience that we hear about through so many cheap songs on the radio and see on Hollyweird tv and movie productions. However, as an "act of being", love means that people are "actively" showing love towards one another – and things.

Consequently, love should be an active, not passive, practice of caring about, being concerned for, concentrating on, trying to understand, and feeling responsible towards not just our mates, but our work, and our communities. Besides, when love is passive, it doesn't last long, because it is just a "mood". To be sure, moods change, all of the time. Hence, the serial polygamy practiced by so many of those involved with the institution of marriage and other "love" relationships in our society, as people “fall” in and out of love. Still, the cultural institutions in our society lend to the self-hatred mentioned above that is practiced amongst us. Literature and images in schools, the arts, and, especially, the government- and corporate-controlled mainstream media deliberately perpetuate this indignity too.

Moreover, the idea that the violence among African American and other non-European American youth is largely the result of a lack of jobs and too much gun possession seems to be missing the point, which is: it is a lack of both social and historical conscience in the aforementioned youth that is at the bottom of our dilemma.

To be sure, that lack of conscience is no accident. The great Marcus Garvey pointed out: "This propaganda of dis-associating Western Negroes from Africa is not a new one. For many years white propagandists have been printing tons of literature to impress scattered Ethiopia, especially that portion within their civilization, with the idea that Africa is a despised place, inhabited by savages, and cannibals, where no civilized human being should go, especially black civilized human beings." - Marcus Garvey (Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey)

Additionally, mean-spirited terms like “minorities” that are based upon equally mean-spirited and phony claims that people make about being “white”, in spite of their true ancestral past, thus forming an artificial “majority” group, makes this problem proliferate. That is, of course, the basis of White Supremacy.

Nevertheless, in the end, when discussing the idea of superiority versus inferiority, Dr. King wrote, "

"Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. " - Letter from a Birmingham Jail

So-called “immigration law reform” , with talk now of even changing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution is a blatant and racist attack against all non-European Americans, especially African Americans – not simply Mexicans and others.

“Dare to struggle – dare to win!” – Frederick Douglass

G. Djata Bumpus