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The Trap Set for Black Americans
In certain neighborhoods of Detroit, Baltimore, or Atlanta, a strange phenomenon is observed: part of the African American community seems to support restrictive immigration policies. To understand, you must look at history. Black Americans have been historically confined to the most grueling, most precarious jobs. Today, after decades of struggle for recognition and social mobility, some perceive the arrival of immigrant workers as direct competition in these same jobs. This feeling isn’ t an instinctive rejection of the other. It’ s the fruit of organized competition by the economic system, which pits vulnerable populations against each other instead of questioning the structure that produces precarity. The real conflict doesn’ t pit migrants against Black Americans. It pits working classes against an economic order that prospers from their division. And when you browse social media, you get the impression of witnessing a quarrel among the wretched of the earth in the master’ s plantation. The house negro looking unfavorably upon the hardworking immigrant who, here, is nothing other than the field negro. The latter sometimes seems to better understand his precarious situation and organizes to build a more solid dream of freedom and prosperity: by investing in his children’ s education, or by building a future in his country of origin, so that the sacrifices of his multiple deprivations in the American hell contribute to an ideal he defines for himself. These immigrant successes create discomfort among some locals, which often becomes an essential driver of anti-immigration sentiment. Politicians know this and exploit it to harangue crowds. It’ s shameful, but it works. The example of the stigmatization of Jews in Nazi Germany clearly illustrates this mechanism. Their social success was presented as proof that they were“ leeches on the country.” The same rhetoric repeats today, with different targets.
Flashmag! Edition 169 Fevrier 2026
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