The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

“At the barbershop on a recent afternoon, warehouse manager Forrest Hall Jr., 60, expressed frustration with the sympathy immigrants have drawn, after days of televised marches across the country.

”They broke the law,” he said. ”If they give them amnesty, they should give every black man and woman in America amnesty for what happened in slavery. I see them parading around like we owe them something. We don’t owe them anything.”

Despite their frustrations, some African-Americans said they understand why employers hire immigrants, especially undocumented ones.

”They work seven days a week for half the money we make,” said Arthur Benson, 37, a construction worker. ”I respect that. If I had a job to do, and if I had a choice to get five black men or 10 immigrants for the same price, I’d take the immigrants.”

Benson’s attitude is reflected in a recent Pew Hispanic Center poll, which suggests that African-Americans, in general, view immigrants more favorably than do whites, but they also believe more strongly than whites that immigrants take jobs from native-born workers (more…).

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Illegal immigration isn’t the only threat to folks who work blue collar type jobs. There are numbers of companies who have taken a “why settle for a trickle?” attitude by moving  large chunks of their  operations  to Mexico leaving cities like Detroit in a job seeker’s nightmare.  While General Motors has been slashing jobs here in the US, the story is quite different south of the border…

DETROIT (AP) – General Motors Corp., which is closing plants in the United States, says it will spend $600 million to $650 million US to build a small car assembly plant in Mexico, employing 1,800 to 2,300 workers. It is to open in 2008. (more…)

Even Germany with one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe is not willing to pass up on cheap labor (Volkswagen is one example).

This is why I believe that entrepreneurship must become a built-in part of our culture (similar to that of Africans, Asians, and other ethnic groups) if we are to weather this wave of cheap labor–a wave that is not going anywhere anytime soon.