Black Immigrants

Photo courtesy of Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) from this article about Black immigrants

 Image Description: A dark-skinned black immigrant woman wearing sunglasses and a hijab gestures with her mouth open like she is speaking.

 I've wanted to make this post for a while but felt hesitant to out of fear. I have been organizing with communities of color in LA and the need to share is overriding. In the U.S., Black immigrants face a double erasure: we are not included in the Black narrative in the U.S. that focuses solely on African-Americans and we are not included in the immigration narrative. I have experienced push back in multiple communities (African-American and non-Black immigrant) with the idea that one cannot be both Black and an immigrant. Black immigrants and their descendants are met with a combination of anti-Blackness and xenophobia in the U.S. There is a great article that highlights how the idea that Black cannot equal African, Caribbean, or other folx in the Diaspora, like Afro-Latinx peoples, is a form of anti-Blackness. The erasure of Black countries and populations around the world is a symptom of U.S. imperialism.The erasure of Black immigrants is dangerous, because if every Black person is assumed to be African-American there will be no resources allocated for Black immigrants, putting them in even more danger. I also want to take this time to recognize other people that are constantly erased in the U.S. like the Indigenous/Native peoples that are assumed to be gone but are still living with the incredible systemic racism placed on their communities. Native people in the U.S. have the same or higher rates of police brutality as Black people in the U.S. Thank you so much for reading and I hope we can all use this information when we organize in the future 
Related: Black Immigrants Continued
<3
Hyphenated Ethiopian third culture kid. Twitter: @moonchereka

Comments

  1. GladysMay 21, 2017 at 9:57 PM

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    1. MekdelaMay 21, 2017 at 10:43 PM

      <3 I look forward to hearing more from you too.

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