Should Black America Care About Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

Nothing serves the kleptocratic agenda more than minoritized communities undermining each other.

Licensed via Adobe Stock Photo

Lashaun Turner, a self-described “conservative-leaning independent,” recently published a piece on Substack titled, “Black America Shouldn’t Waste Political Capital on Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” which peddles standard conservative fare, including unsubstantiated claims and circumstantial information about gang affiliation, to demonize Garcia.

Turner refers to him as an “illegal alien.” He wasn’t. Garcia was living in the United States legally via a withholding order. A Maryland court upheld the existing withholding order following Garcia’s detention and deportation, as did a Conservative-heavy Supreme Court. Put simply, the Trump administration broke the law, not Garcia.

But I’m less interested in relitigating Garcia’s case (so to speak, as no case was litigated). I’m more concerned about Turner’s broader message, which suggests that supporting another community comes at the expense of the Black community. Turner writes:

Black Americans are asking why their elected officials are expending so much energy on an illegal alien when their own communities face systemic crises that demand attention.

This perspective implies that the cause of Black America is at odds with the cause of noncitizens and, presumably, other groups of people—a zero-sum worldview that pits minoritized communities against each other. Dividing groups of people has long been the strategy of wealthy white people in this country. It’s hardly necessary to do their job for them.

White landowners were dividing communities back in colonial times, introducing anti-miscegenation laws at a time when interracial marriage was not uncommon. The new laws served to maintain a racial hierarchy, but there was another underlying motivation: The fear that poor white farmers, black farmers, and indigenous people might close ranks against them. Separating those groups by law protected the landowners’ consolidation of wealth and power.

That strategy endures today within the mostly white oligarchy, manifesting in the vilification of migrants, noncitizens, Palestinians, Black and brown people, and other groups. Targeting migrants and noncitizens is especially effective, for molding a boogeyman from the clay of the voiceless and unrepresented delivers an endless supply of outrage and excuses. Furthermore, to isolate Black people from Latinos, Jewish people from Palestinian people, and citizens from noncitizens, is to unwittingly do the bidding of the rich and insatiable.

Even if Turner were right about using Black political capital exclusively for the benefit of the Black community (Never mind that 1 in 10 Black people are immigrants. Never mind that the dehumanizing language now leveled at noncitizens and migrants, words like “animals” and “criminals,” have long been hurled at Black Americans.), was it necessary to participate in the smear campaign against Garcia?

Two things can be true at the same time: Black political capital should be spent exclusively on issues of concern to the Black community, in Turner’s worldview, and noncitizens should be afforded due process and treated like human beings. Noncitizens needn’t be criminals and animals to make one’s point.

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Few things sadden me or discourage me more than when minoritized communities tear each other down. I think it’s because of all people the historically minoritized should understand the plight of the downtrodden and disenfranchised best; they should be most likely to show compassion.

Toward the end of her piece, Turner reveals but a glimmer of compassion, or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as a recognition that this position is likely to be construed as lacking compassion:

The Black community isn’t heartless. Many are tired of seeing their struggles take a backseat to the causes of non-citizens.

Turner’s right about one thing: The Black community isn’t heartless. Black women in particular form what may be the most compassionate voting bloc in the United States, a compassion forged, no doubt, in the transgenerational crucible of otherization. I can only hope that the politicians Turner is appealing to, like

Jasmine Crockett

, aren’t listening. I can only hope that within Black America, Turner is the minority.

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