Dating back to Thomas Jefferson, there has always been a segment of American political and government leadership that has been strongly involved in wanting to deport free Africans in this country back to Africa.
In 1816, the American Colonization Society was formed, including “founding fathers” such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, James Madison and Francis Scott Key. Their mission: To move blacks outside the U.S. and back to Africa, if need be, to insure the continuing quality of life for white Americans, among other things.
You know the old saying: “You don’t have to go home, but you have to leave here?” That could have been first said by the members of the American Colonization Society, an organization that was instrumental in establishing the nation of Liberia on Africa’s West Coast, in 1821, as a place to which to send former U.S. slaves. They wound up sending about 15,000 blacks from the U.S. to that location, according to most estimates.
From a close scan of recent news accounts, things haven’t changed all that much, in 2009, and there are still people high up in the U.S. government who maintain an irrational commitment to sending black people out of this country and back to Africa – even though there is substantial evidence that the Africans happen to be some of the most well-educated, socially well-adjusted people in America.
Why did I use the word “irrational?”
Let’s start with the fact that while the Obama administration still seems committed to the President’s campaign pledges to create a convenient path to citizenship for the 12-20 million Latin American and Mexican illegal immigrants in this country, the same government seems absolutely intent on implementing policies that call for the outright deportation of Africans and black Caribbeans, who have immigrated into the country in far fewer numbers.
In fact, the U.S. government, following the signing of an order of “delayed enforced departures” by George W. Bush in 2007, has recently informed about 14,000 Liberians, who fled the 14-year-long civil war in their country, that, as of March 31, 2009, they should be prepared to be deported back to Africa. It doesn’t matter if they’re gainfully employed, it doesn’t matter if they’ve been absolute model citizens, it doesn’t matter if their children have been born in this country and are now citizens, the parents have to go.
If we dig a little deeper, we find that the French news service, Agence France Presse(AFP), reported last week that the U.S. is also moving closer to carrying out deportation orders for more than 30,000 black Haitians. Of that number, according to AFP, nearly six hundred have already been placed in detention centers or on electronic monitoring devices, in preparation for their shipment back to their island nation.
According to the same news source, when non-black Cubans arrive in Miami, by comparison, they are immediately “given the right to stay and work and a blanket, red-carpet treatment.”
There was also a report last week that 65 Nigerians – 59 males and six females - had been recently deported from the U.S. Some had been accused of having committed crimes such as robbery, fraud, and overstaying their visas. Others, however, were shipped out of the “good old U.S.A.” for allegedly “blaring their car horns,” “playing of music loud” and for “overspeeding.”
Even closer to home, on this whole topic, is the current situation involving the President’s father’s half-sister, a Kenyan national named Zeituni Onyango, who escorted her son from her homeland to a Boston-based university, where he had been admitted as a student and, subsequently, sought political asylum in the city, in 2004, in an attempt to escape violence, back in Kenya. A federal immigration judge rejected Ms. Onyango’s petition and ordered her to leave the country, at once.
Commenting, during the recent presidential campaign, on the situation impacting the woman he referred to as “Auntie Zeituni” in his memoir “Dreams from My Father,” then-Senator Obama had his spokespeople say that he had no knowledge of his aunt’s status, but that he “obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws should be followed.”
By “appropriate laws,” did he mean his aunt should be kicked out of the country along with the other Africans? Sounds like it. Couldn’t the presidential candidate have checked
on his aunt’s “status” with a simple phone call? Seems as though he could have.
How can 12-20 million illegal Mexican immigrants live here with virtually the full support of the U.S. government, while at the same time, a single Kenyan woman, who is a part-time health advocate, and a computer programmer, be given a dismissive deportation sentence by a federal judge?
What had she done that 20 million Mexican “illegals” have not already done? The most disturbing and contradictory point of this whole comparison can be found in the words of Ms. Onyango’s own nephew, Mr. Obama, who said, in a March 2007 interview with Larry King on CNN: “We have to recognize that we’ve got 12 million undocumented workers who are already here, many of them living their lives alongside other Americans. Their kids are going to school, many of the kids, in fact, were born in this country and are citizens… it is absolutely vital that we give them the opportunity to travel a pathway to citizenship.”
Sounds like a very reasonable explanation for why the U.S. has made no significant move to deport millions of Mexican illegal aliens, to date. But why doesn’t that same logic apply to Liberians, to Nigerians, to Haitians and to other black immigrants?
It can’t be because the “powers that be” don’t believe that Africans fit the profile of “hard working, loyal, intelligent and desirable” that is generally used to describe Western European and Asian immigrants. That can’t be it.
Know why it can’t be? Because, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, and the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, African immigrants to the U.S. were found more likely to be college-educated than any other immigrant group, including those from Europe, and other parts of North American and Asia.
The same data revealed that African immigrants to the U.S. are also more highly educated than any native-born ethnic group, including whites and African Americans. The fact is that 48.9 percent of all African immigrants in the U.S. hold a college degree, slightly more than Asian Americans(44.3%), and nearly double the rate of native-born whites.
In addition, 19.4 percent of adult Africans in the U.S. hold a graduate degree, compared to 8.1 percent of adult whites.
So, it doesn’t make sense at all.
While we’re on the subject, the incredible educational attainment of African immigrants also sends a stark message that there is absolutely nothing in the genetic make-up of blacks that should cause us to be experiencing 49 percent drop-out rates in largely black-populated public schools across the country.
It’s clear that black people have no less inherent potential to be educated than any other race or ethnic group.
At the same time, there does seem to be something wrong with the way in which we have been educating our young people – especially in urban centers. The academic achievement of indigenous Africans makes that point, emphatically.
Since the establishment of Liberia in 1821, the U.S. has been engaged in the practice of deporting free Africans.
It seems that it’s a habit that’s difficult to break or to rationally explain.
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