When in doubt, progressives will always default to weaponizing historical black plight — the lifeblood of their political arguments.
No one wields dead black people more enthusiastically than a progressive ideologue bent on clotting common-sense political discussions.
Leftists like Ras Baraka repeatedly repurpose our racial identity to throttle the beating heart of American prosperity.
In a recently surfaced campaign-trail video, Baraka — current mayor of Newark, NJ and aspiring governor — angrily compared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the slave-catchers of the distant past.
“The attack on immigrants…they want to know why we can relate to that: Because we was undocumented too!” Baraka proclaimed.
“Black folks . . . you come from a whole line of undocumented people. And if you didn’t have your papers, you going back to the plantation. They have people chasing, catching you. It wasn’t called ICE then,” he lamented.
More From Adam B. Coleman
“We know what that means and feels like,” he said. “In fact, the 14th Amendment exists because you was being chased.”
That’s Baraka’s modus operandi: using black American victim narratives to fuel his political career and progressive policy agenda — even to the detriment of working-class black Americans themselves.
The predominantly older black audience that heard his “slave-catcher” rant is of the ilk that’s living off their solid 401k’s and no-longer-offered company pensions.
They aren’t the black Americans who are living check-to-check with little savings, while competing with illegal immigrants for traditional working-class jobs all throughout the state of New Jersey.
Baraka and other progressives fail to acknowledge that illegal immigration has directly harmed black Americans throughout this state — as people who aren’t supposed to be here have taken away our opportunities.
As a New Jersey resident for over 20 years, I’ve watched the Garden State transform into the “Warehouse State,” thanks to the exploding shipping and fulfillment industry.
But it’s become evident that the new job opportunities in this flourishing sector were designed to be filled primarily by low-wage illegal immigrants who form a modern-day servant class.
The Democratic apparatus in my state turns a blind eye to the corporations indiscriminately hiring people who aren’t authorized to work here — solely to increase their profits.
Black Americans in New Jersey aren’t ignorant of the fact that they are being overshadowed and replaced, even in Baraka’s own Newark.
Baraka would never block the entrance of a warehouse in his city for refusing to hire black people in favor of illegal Hispanic workers — because he is actually re-creating the slave-catcher role he’s complaining about.
Much like those villains of the past, Baraka works to maintain the status quo of exploitation and human suffering that comes from unchecked illegal immigration.
You can always tell what politicians care about, based on what they prioritize.
Clearly Baraka cares far more about the people who broke the law to be here than about the citizens in his own city who pay his salary.
Baraka’s slavery rhetoric may work on comfortable fools who have the luxury of not having to worry about those illegally competing for their jobs.
But in a state with one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, every dollar matters to working-class New Jerseyans.
As a voter, I have no faith whatsoever that a Gov. Ras Baraka would advocate for me as a citizen of this country.
His antics in front of the press at the ICE facility made that more than clear.
Nor would he care about millennials like me, who are priced out of buying a home in the Garden State — and may be forced to leave just to achieve the American homeownership dream.
The only people chasing this black man away are Democratic progressive elitists like Ras Baraka.
His lips may mutter platitudes for black Americans, but his actions show me his exotic love affair with illegal exploitation is first in his heart.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “The Children We Left Behind” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing.
