Forging a Grand Coalition: Opportunities for (and Challenges of) a Black-Brown Alliance

Forging a Grand Coalition: Opportunities for (and Challenges of) a Black-Brown Alliance (June 28, 2007) Audio of session is also available.

Eric Ward (Center for New Community, Chicago)
Tarso Luis Ramos (Political Research Associates, Somerville, Mass.)
Teresa Ortiz (Resource Center of the Americas, Minneapolis)
Corey Barnes (Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois)

Moderator Eric Ward (Center for New Community, Chicago) opened the panel “Forging a Grand Coalition: Opportunities for (and Challenges of) a Black-Brown Alliance” with a discussion of the normalizing of racist discourse and the coding of racist language. He pointed out how the right-wing uses immigration as a way to talk about race. In this way, anti-immigration has become the new face of white supremacy.

Corey Barnes (Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois) noted that activists in Chicago have declared a moratorium on Black-Brown discussions because they are ultimately divisive. Tarso Luis Ramos (Political Research Associates, Somerville, Mass.) echoed that this is not a useful discussion because it reinforces divisions and creates a distorted lens through which to view race relations.

Teresa Ortiz (Resource Center of the Americas, Minneapolis) pointed out that not all immigrants are Latin@s and that not all Latin@s are immigrants. This led Tarso to ponder whether we live in a post racist world in which we are faced with a multi-racist fascism and a neoliberal multiculturalism. Corporate capitalism benefits from a divided labor force.

Teresa noted that different issues and concerns leads to divisions in schools and labor unions. Corey followed up on this by pointing out the problem of coalitions of convenience. Issues of civil rights need to be engaged starting at the border and deepening into Indigenous concerns. Tarso observed that Black/Brown divides are not the only issue. There are also other common concerns. Where can we build unity? Looking at divisions is not a good place to begin discussions. Corey stated that education is a continual process. Teresa added that a a lack of historical perspective often leads people to mistakenly believe that they are the first ones to face these issues.

Tarso critiqued the myth of the “American Dream.” Marginalized groups buy into ideologies of racial supremacy in order to gain benefits and prestige at the cost of discriminating against other groups. For example, the Irish became “white” through joining discrimination against African Americans. He also reflected on the gendering of immigration–it comes to be seen as a male threat of terrorists and taking away jobs. Is it women, however, who do most of the work in the immigrant rights movement.

Teresa observed that we have to fix these problems on a grassroots level, not from the outside. This is also an issue of economic justice. The role of white activists is to work in solidarity with communities in struggle.