When several hundred people rallied at Charlotte’s Marshall Park earlier this month demanding immigration reform and denouncing Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, the number of African Americans in attendance could be counted on one hand.

Kojo Nantambu, who heads the local NAACP, was one of them. He said he was there to show solidarity with a group that now faces the same types of discrimination that blacks have faced in the United States.

“Our plight and our struggles are the same,” he told Qcitymetro.com. “There should be no discrimination, no segregation, against any kind of people.”

All across the nation that day, other black leaders were attending similar events, making similar statements.

In an opinion piece today on TheGrio.com, writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson says leaders such as Al Sharpton -- and even President Obama -- don’t represent the majority of blacks in their support for liberal immigration reform.

He writes:

“...many blacks don't agree with them. In fact, there is a quiet but glaring disconnect between the outspoken backing of civil rights leaders for liberal immigration reform measures and the unease, wariness and outright antipathy that many blacks feel toward illegal immigration. That disconnect is evident in blog posts, chat rooms, and websites and letters to newspaper editors, and on talk radio shows. Many blacks blame illegal immigrants for the poverty and job dislocation in black communities. A Pew Poll in 2006 found that more blacks than whites say that illegal immigrants should not be denied education and services. But the tolerance ends when it comes to jobs. Far more blacks than whites agree that illegal immigrants take jobs away from blacks and claim to know someone who has lost a job because of illegal immigration.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.
 

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