Ernesto Portillo Jr. : Tucson black leader skeptical of worry voiced by Minutemen

Arizona Daily Star ^ | Ernesto Portillo Jr.

[SandRat]

The names in the American pantheon of black civil rights leaders is long.

It stretches from Crispus Attucks, a slave of black and American Indian parents who was killed in the 1770 Boston Massacre by British soldiers, to Andrew Young Jr., a 1960s civil rights leader and later Atlanta mayor.

Now there's an effort to add a new name to the list: Minutemen.

The lawn-chair brigade, which appointed itself border guardians last year, has now taken it upon itself to become guardians of black America.

The Minutemen, lead by cofounder and failed congressional candidate Jim Gilchrist of California, launched a crusade Wednesday citing undocumented immigrants as the cause of black unemployment.

Immigration politics is making for stranger-than-usual bedfellows.

The Minutemen are the successors of the Know-Nothings, a mid-19th century anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant movement, and White Citizens Councils, the anti-integrationist and anti-semitic Southern groups of the 1950s and 1960s.

Now the largely white Minutemen members say they stand arm in arm with their black brothers and sisters.

But don't tell that to longtime Tucson civil rights leader, Clarence Boykins, who is the executive director of the Tucson-Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce and president of the NAACP's Tucson chapter.

"The Minutemen don't speak for me or blacks in Arizona or America," said Boykins, who spoke at the April 10 rally at Armory Park.

He said the answer to illegal immigration is a comprehensive plan. He supports a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants and improved border security without fences.

It's true that within the black community, there are concerns over the impact of illegal immigration on black employment and the political future. While some blacks jeered Gilchrist and a few Minutemen in Los Angeles this week when the group launched its caravan to the nation's capital, there were other blacks who supported the border watchers.

"Illegal immigration has had and is having a devastating effect on the black community," the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a Los Angeles Minuteman supporter and critic of the NAACP, told the Los Angeles Times. "Black Americans are being put out of jobs, they're put out of their own homes."

Black unemployment has persistently lagged behind white. The joblessness rate for whites 16 years and over was 3.9 percent. For blacks it was 8.8 percent, the Department of Labor's reported for April.

In 2004, 72 percent of black men in their 20s who did not complete high school did not have a job. That compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.

In some cities with large black populations, legal and undocumented immigrants have entered the work force, competing for low-wage jobs.

The Minutemen want black Americans — and everyone else for that matter — to make a connection between black unemployment and illegal immigration.

But it's an overly simplistic and incorrect connection, Boykins said.

Black unemployment is due to the lack of quality education and job opportunities, he said. State and national governments are not providing sufficient money to improve education and job training, he said.

Illegal immigration is a factor in the unemployment rate but it's not the culprit. The national rate is a relatively healthy 4.7 percent.

The Minutemen are trying to divide blacks and Latinos over jobs, Boykins said. "Nothing of what they profess is closely related to our issues."

As the small caravan of Minutemen drives to Washington, D.C., what they really want is to drive is a political wedge between blacks and Latinos.

[SandRat]

Trying to follow this one has the room seeming to spin wildly.

[OKIEDOC]

Ernesto Portillo Jr.

The Minutemen are trying to divide blacks and Latinos over jobs, Boykins said. "Nothing of what they profess is closely related to our issues."

As the small caravan of Minutemen drives to Washington, D.C., what they really want is to drive is a political wedge between blacks and Latinos.

COMMENT:

Ernesto Portillo Jr.

The name should tell anyone that this guy could only write a fake but accurate phony baloney article about how blacks felt about the Minutemen.

The radical extremist Assland leaders see their mobs being reduced by the blacks turning on their inane ideas.

[Texas_Jarhead]

Minutemen Hit Piece Alert!

[staytrue]

I hate to say this but for once the liberal fruitcake in this article has it right.

The illegals should affect all groups equally in terms of employment but black unemployment is so much higher than other groups.

That would point to other causes as the problem for blacks.

Here I think Cosby has is right. Black ghetto culture is the main problem, not the illegals.

And surprisingly, the fruitcake gets it right again when he says "Illegal immigration is a factor in the unemployment rate but it's not the culprit."

[cripplecreek]

"The Minutemen don't speak for me or blacks in Arizona or America," said Boykins

Seems to me that Boykins assumes that he speaks for a great many people.

[staytrue]

This is no hit piece. He is right. Read post 4.

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

I have exchanged email with Ernest Portillo, Jr., and he is a typical knows everything, left wing goof off. I don't understand how anyone as apparently incompetent as he is can keep a job....

[axes_of_weezles]

Ernie is always wrong about latino issues because he is blinded by his own predjudices.

Here are the stats from the Red Stars own opinion letters to the editor page:

Hot issues: For the week of April 30-May 6, the Star received 50 letters opposed to May 1 boycott (five in favor), 30 letters in favor of restricting immigrant rights (eight in favor of more immigrant rights)

He knows he is not persuasive on the issue and is losing. Time to pull out the race card and whine.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Boykins is trying to tell us that illiterate drop outs from Mexican schools are better educated and qualified for jobs in America's work force than black drop outs from American schools?

Perhaps the solution to the unemployment problem among young blacks would be to provide funds for sending black children to boarding schools in Mexico for grades K through, say eighth grade. Then if they chose to drop out they would be competitive with illegal aliens for jobs, or if they chose to continue their education, would probably qualify for second year college.

Is Boykins a genius or what?

[RinAZ2005]

Did you mean post 5?

Anyway, Ernesto and the Daily Star are no fans of the Minutemen, and will do anything they can do to diminish the effectiveness of any initiative they perceive to be bolstering the MM's impact. No one's naive enough to believe that the illegals are at the root of black unemployment numbers. The MM are simply building a coalition and working-class blacks are definitely a valid group to work with. They have the added advantage that they are more immune to the radical activist's screams of racism.

We don't call that newspaper the Arizona Red Star for nothin'.

[Borax Queen]

Now the largely white Minutemen members say they stand arm in arm with their black brothers and sisters.

20% of the MM is not "white."

[downtownconservative]

Portillo writes (I use the term loosely) for low subscription newspaper read predominately, but with again limited distribution, in the town of Tucson. He likes to preach to the choir of fhe large illegal hispanic population (and their advocates)who reside there in significant numbers.

[DumpsterDiver]

This is no hit piece.

You could've fooled me.

The lawn-chair brigade

The Minutemen are the successors of the Know-Nothings, a mid-19th century anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant movement, and White Citizens Councils, the anti-integrationist and anti-semitic Southern groups

the largely white Minutemen members

Minutemen are trying to divide blacks and Latinos over jobs

what they [MMP] really want is to drive is a political wedge between blacks and Latinos.

[OKIEDOC]

Only problem for Ernesto is the illegals don't read the newspaper, especially the The Arizona Daily Red Star.

[RinAZ2005]

It's a highly liberal newspaper. They dropped Coulter's column like a hot potato within a handful of weeks after starting it. Currently there's only one conservative voice on the opinion page.

Not that I've done any scientific polls, but among my friends and acquaintances opinions aren't split on anglo/hispanic lines, but on liberal/conservative lines. Many hispanics oppose any special treatment of illegals (other than getting them out of here), but sadly their voices are rarely heard.

Obviously a minority of hispanics are politically conservative, so your point is essentially on the mark.

[last american]

Arrival of aliens ousts U.S. workers

By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published April 10, 2006

An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less. Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up. "After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.........

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060410-123506-1297r.htm



And the kicker? Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon act which would have helped preclude getting these criminal illegal aliens on board.

[SandRat]

It's the Arizona Red Star. Only Fellow Travellors welcome and kept on.

[SandRat]

Well in the bird-shot pellet size minds of the left, (and I'm being overly generous in the sizing), justifies them saying the vast majority 80% are members other than of color. Remember the left loves to spin and parse words and numbers to meet their perverted agenda.

[kstewskis]

Black unemployment is due to the lack of quality education and job opportunities, he said. State and national governments are not providing sufficient money to improve education and job training, he said.

So do what so many of what your black brothers and sisters did, as well as many more Americans of every color and ethnicity...

Don't rely on the government to make things right for you!!

The more you choose to do that, the more you chose to "remain a slave" to it. Don't make that mistake again.