by GLEN FORD
Black revolutionary leader Malcolm X (1925-1965)
“All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Back in February, Bill Clinton hosted Turkish-born billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya, the Chobani Yogurt mogul, at a gathering of the Clinton Global Initiative, in New York City. Clinton gushingly endorsed Ulukaya’s importation of thousands of immigrants to staff his factories:
“Detroit has 10,000 empty, structurally sound houses – 10,000! – and a lot of jobs to be had repairing those houses. But Detroit just came out of bankruptcy and the mayor is trying to do an innovative sort of urban homesteading program there. It think it just gives you an example of what could be done. Any of us who have ever had any personal experience with either Syrian Americans or Syrian refugees thinks it’s a pretty good deal.”
The former president was echoing a scheme proposed by Michigan Republican Governor Rick Synder, back in 2014, to bring in 50,000 immigrants on EB-2 visas to “revitalize” Detroit. Snyder backed off the plan, a year later, but Bill Clinton remains enthusiastic about “Afro-Dilution” of the cities through immigrant importation. In a matter of months, Slick Willie will likely be in a position to put his scheme into practice. “My husband…I’m going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because you know, he knows how to do it,” said Hillary Clinton, in a campaign swing through Kentucky, in May. “And especially in places like coal country and inner cities and other parts of the country that have been really left out.”
“Republicans and Democrats view the very presence of Black people as the root of urban decline.”
It is immaterial that the YouTube of Slick Willie’s performance at the Clinton Global Initiative was circulated on the Internet, this week, by the racists at Breitbart News, who hate people of color, worldwide. Breitbart has done Black folks in the U.S. a back-handed service by reminding us that Republicans and Democrats view the very presence of Black people as the root of urban decline. Both the “conservative” Synder and the supposedly “liberal” Clinton are determined to disperse Black urban populations and prevent them from ever again becoming concentrated on valuable and strategic real estate. Black people’s right to self-determination, and the practical capacity to exercise those rights through development of their own communities, is anathema at both poles of the corporate duopoly.
Black Agenda Report for ore