The current immigration discussion reminds me of a firsthand glimpse of the determination it takes to grab the American dream and blacks who may not be dreaming at all.
Let me start with the dreamers. While traveling through the Strait of Florida on a cruise ship two years ago, other passengers and I saw eight determined Cubans aboard a rickety raft. The vessel was patched together with 50-gallon steel drums, boards and a makeshift sail. The craft bobbed perilously in the moonlit waters, which were stirred by a hurricane not far away.
The raft?s passengers flashed a light, signaling for help. As our cruise ship drew closer, we were able to zoom in on the Cubans.
Their faces were jubilant as the ship?s crew pulled them aboard. For a few happy moments, they thought reaching the cruise ship meant they had made it to America. They were wrong. They had not reached our shores, so the U.S. Coast Guard came hours later and repatriated them to Cuba. Their dream had been denied.
Or deferred. I got the feeling they would try again.
Why? For the same reason that the world has immigrated to America over time: From the mass migration of the Irish in the 1800s to the Mexicans, Cubans, Haitians and others demanding acceptance today, people come in pursuit of the Big “O” ? opportunity. Immigrants know they can arrive without the ability to speak a lick of English, but with another dose of determination, the next generation can graduate from Ivy League schools.
The Big “O” has drawn all of us here ? except for one group, which for good reason did not consider coming to America a dream. Opportunity certainly wasn?t knocking when Africans were forcibly immigrated to the New World beginning more than 300 years ago. It was another “O” ? oppression ? with chains in hand.
That is the historic difference between the experience of blacks and that of every other group that arrived here. And to some extent, the legacy of opportunity and oppression shape our place in society and our mindsets today.
The past is undeniable. Slavery, Jim Crow and resistance to civil rights were the governors of oppression. All purposefully sent a clear signal to generations of blacks who might dare to seek the “Big O:” “You need not apply.”
It is remarkable that blacks have survived, much less succeeded in spite of this ? building families, communities, churches, businesses and social organizations. A great number have thrived because of great fortitude and a determination to take ownership of a country that also was theirs.
Blacks have accomplished a great deal in all aspects of American life, inventing new products, creating great art, becoming world-renown physicians, guiding space shuttles and serving at the highest levels of government. They dared to do more than survive; they dreamed.
Many others, however, are still pulled down by the nightmare of the other “O.” Most of us would like to believe that oppression is a thing of the past, that blacks are squandering all this opportunity.
And it?s not just whites who feel this way. I had a recent conversation with a young woman from West Africa who is a permanent resident here. Her African friends cannot understand why blacks as a whole are not more prosperous. When people come from Nigeria or Cameroon or Ghana, she says, they are drawn by opportunity ? the opportunity to get a quality education, the opportunity to earn high salaries, the opportunity to create a legacy of accomplishment.
They dismiss the historic oppression and discount today?s obstacles as surmountable costs of achieving their dreams.
Where, they wonder, is black ambition?
First, I would point out to them the brilliant success stories that happened against great odds. Then, we could talk forever about the obstacles, which should not be so easily dismissed as an exhausting, debilitating legacy.
But then, I would say to every black child I can reach that the American dream is your dream. Your ancestors built this country, literally, and it is your birthright. Both O?s are there for you ? opportunity and oppression. You must choose which one will guide your life and which to relegate to the back of your mind.
This is a message black children cannot hear enough. They must get hear it in the classroom, at home, from mentors and from grandparents who would love to attend their Ivy League graduations.
It is not easy, but it is about changing mindsets to opportunity. Or, as the 1987 PBS series said, it?s about “Eyes on the Prize.”
Few forces on Earth are more potent than the pursuit of opportunity. It?s strong enough to overcome society?s worst offenses against humanity and powerful enough to push families through hurricane-troubled seas.
No matter where the journey began.
Norris P. West is a former journalist living in Columbia.
