Black Immigration Kills Wokeism
If America is so racist, why are so many black people immigrating here?
In the 1961 film Paris Blues, Sidney Poitier plays Eddie Cook, a black jazz musician who moved to Paris to escape the rampant racism in America. After some time in Paris, he meets Connie, a black American tourist. They are basically perfect for each other, except that Eddie has no interest in moving back to America and dealing with the racism.
It turns out that Eddie is not alone. There were virtually no black immigration to the US between the end of the Civil War and the culmination of the Civil Rights movement in 1965. You could argue that this was because of the quota laws put in place in the 1920s, but you’d be wrong. Black immigration was nonexistent before the 1920s as well, even though immigration as a whole was booming in the late 19th-century.
As that chart makes clear, black immigration didn’t gain steam until after civil rights, and it really didn’t make progress until after the year 2000. 58% of black immigrants and 74% of African immigrants in the US have come after the turn of the century. In comparison, among all US immigrants, about half have come after 2000.
As I see it, the data tells a very clear story:
Racism in the US made it an unattractive destination for black people.
Thus, almost no black people immigrated.
America has become significantly less racist.
Thus, black people now immigrate here.
Does this not throw a huge wrench in narrative pushed by the woke left? If America is supremely and systematically racist against black people to the point of it being unsafe to be black, why is black immigration increasing so fast?
Maybe you could argue that it’s just family members going to reunite with their families? But, I think this argument still falls flat. Imagine you go to a hotel and are having a horrible time. You don’t then go and tell your family and friends to also come to the hotel. Instead, you tell them to stay as far away from that hotel as possible. So, if America was truly that shitty for black people, I think it’s more likely that they would tell their families to save themselves and stay the hell away. It’s not like there’s nowhere else to go. Eddie Cook went to Paris in the 1960s, there’s no reason you can’t do the same today.
Could it be for economic reasons? In other words, could the economic gains from being in America outweigh the drawbacks of systemic racism? I find this also unlikely. How can a country be systemically racist but still produce best-in-class economic gains for the race that is supposedly being systemically suppressed? Maybe you can argue that capitalism is just that powerful, but nobody arguing for wokism makes that argument.
Maybe the vast majority of black immigrants are moving to areas that are supposedly less racist, like the more liberal California and Northeast? Nope, most of them actually go south.
This leaves the obvious answer: America actually isn’t supremely and systematically racist against black people. If it was, black people wouldn’t come here. And we know this is true because when America was racist, they didn’t.
I don’t see how this isn’t a death knell for wokeism.
If I am missing something here, please tell me.