LOS ANGELES
The 12-city tour the Minuteman Project began this week to build support for tighter border security, including stops in predominantly Black neighborhoods, suggests that now is the time to build an alliance between Hispanics and Blacks, says a University of California-Davis professor.
The Minuteman Project, which has garnered national attention by staking out day laborer sites, is attempting to capitalize on the disenfranchised segments of the African- American and Hispanic communities, says Dr. Kevin R. Johnson, associate dean for academic affairs and Mabie-Apallas Public Interest Professor of Law and Chicana/o Studies at UC-Davis.
“There has to be an alliance. Both Latino and Black activists have to work together,” he says. “I don’t see it happening in Los Angeles. But in Chicago it is there.”
At one stop, in Los Angeles, reaction among Blacks was mixed.
“If we are going to be giving preference to anybody … preference should go to the American-African community that has suffered more than anybody,” Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist told a crowd of 40 supporters that included about 10 Blacks.
But the event soon provoked screaming matches about whether illegal immigrants were taking jobs from Blacks or should be embraced as fellow minorities looking for a better life. Gilchrist had to yell over a dozen mostly Black protesters who chanted “Minutemen go home!” and “KKK go home!”
