http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kaplan26apr26,0,7562311.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
From the Los Angeles Times
ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN
Hoisting the flag in anger
A protest in Leimert Park was messy, surreal, saddening -- and
understandable.
Erin Aubry Kaplan
April 26, 2006
WELL, BLACK people have to be mad at somebody.
The antipathy toward Latino immigrants that has been building silently for
years found full voice Sunday in an anti-immigration rally staged in Leimert
Park, that grassy promontory in the Crenshaw district where black activists
of all creeds and credibility levels come to say their piece or spread their
word. The latest activist was Ted Hayes, founder of the Crispus Attucks
Brigade, a black anti-immigration group that apparently formed for just this
event. The group mounted a rally meant to focus free-floating black
discontent about immigration, but it was something else entirely - a messy,
saddening, surreal mix of too many things, notably black nationalism twisted
into my-country-right-or-wrong black patriotism.
This is an inversion that must have had Malcolm X spinning in his grave. As
it happened, the black man carrying the biggest American flag among a sea of
flags also wore a Malcolm X cap. He stood shoulder to shoulder with a couple
of white Minutemen, motorcycle riders and a strident anti-immigration Latino
activist. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
I should have seen this coming. I have been to many gatherings in Leimert
over the years, several of which turned contentious as black people
struggled to identify exactly who and what are the forces most responsible
for a litany of problems.
On Sunday, there was the usual frantic distribution of fliers and handouts
calling for black solidarity on a number of crises that weren't directly
related to the topic at hand: reparations, criminal justice, three-strikes
reform, foster care, black business promotion, environmental protection.
They were all handily cataloged on one flier like a to-do list, a list that
was officially posted generations ago and has grown ever since. Now there
are causes that have permutated into other causes, and fewer people to carry
them. And so a handful of blacks gathered in Leimert to publicly shift all
that weight onto something else, and someone else.
It was inarguably deplorable and thoroughly American - blaming a neighboring
population for the ills of your own. The black people vigorously waving the
Stars and Stripes certainly were claiming their birthright; it's just that
their birthright is not as noble they imagine.
And yet I had to admit: They had a point. Much as I cringed at the broad
condemnation of Latino immigrants by people who've endured so much
condemnation and endure it still, I understood. I understood the raw anger
at being consistently at the bottom of the economic food chain and watching
yet another group moving up that chain, actually remaking it, with relative
ease. I understood the loud, flag-waving insistence that the nation give its
black citizens consideration above noncitizens. This is something the United
States has never really done; U.S. citizenship has always been less about
papers and more about race, privilege and perceptions of who belongs and who
doesn't, and why.
That the super-patriots in Leimert even had to hold a news conference to ask
for consideration - this, not immigration, was the issue. By its very
existence, the event made the painful point that blacks still belong least
of all. The anxiety over that is justifiable. It's also different from the
xenophobic anxiety of the white Minutemen who were ostensibly there to
support the anti-immigration blacks but whose own law-and-order agenda
hardly embraces the interests of any ethnic minorities. Such differences
were never addressed, though they were sharply in the air.
But many who supported Hayes in spirit admitted the border was neither the
beginning nor the end of the issue. One of the many tragedies of the rally
was that it attracted not simply the fringe but rational black people who
lack any other forum to vent their ambiguity on issues like illegal
immigration.
Terry Anderson, a talk-show host and L.A. native who supports closing the
borders, said recently that even if illegal immigration stopped tomorrow,
there would be no guarantees that blacks would benefit dramatically. "But it
couldn't get any worse for us," he added hopefully. "People would be forced
to deal with us at least."
Maybe. What I know is that rightful black indignation is too quickly
discredited by a wrong response, and Sunday in Leimert Park felt like a
doozy. After an hour and a half, in one incongruous moment among many, some
brigadiers hoisted their flags and marched solemnly around the perimeter of
the park while an ensemble of drummers played a kind of African
accompaniment.
I asked a friend whether the group was playing for or against the cause.
"Those guys?" he said. "Neither. They're here every week. They play no
matter what." We should all have such equanimity.
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