Well, not really.
There’s a “march for jobs” taking place in Washington D.C. today where Ted Cruz, Steve King, and Allen West will sermonize the aggrieved. But their mission is not to create jobs, it’s to convince Congress to vote against immigration reform. Because, as you know, dey took err jerbs!
According to Media Matters the group that organized today’s march, the Black American Leadership Alliance, is more or less an astroturf group serving as a front for FAIR, an anti-immigrant hate group that sympathizes with white supremacists.
As People For The American Way noted, BALA “is just the latest incarnation of a shifting series of front groups for the anti-immigrant nativist group FAIR, which has been trying for years to drive a wedge between African Americans and Latinos.” In fact, according to the Anti-Defamation League, BALA is the new name of what was once known as the African American Leadership Council (AALC). AALC, along with You Don’t Speak for Me (YDSFM), was part of a network of groups formed as a way to expand opposition to immigration reform in black and Latino communities by recruiting a coalition of minority conservative leaders. AALC was modeled after a previous similar effort — orchestrated by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — that birthed a group called Choose Black America (CBA), which had little impact on the immigration debate.
I can’t speak for others because I’m just another white guy, but I imagine if I were an African American I would be insulted by the Tea Party pretending they give a shit about me by forming a front group called the “Black American Leadership Alliance” to speak out against immigrants on my behalf or at least make it appear that they’re speaking on my behalf. Because that’s obviously the intention.
Media Matters also reports that BALA’s founder, Leah Durant, is also the executive director of Progressives For Immigration Reform which, in similar manner, exists solely for the purpose of passing themselves off as liberal while condemning immigrants.
I suppose this may be what they meant when they announced plans to reach out to minority communities. If there’s anything amusing about it, it’s that their ideas are increasingly unable to stand on their own. If their ideas had any merit, they wouldn’t have to pass them off as the views of others.