You did hear that right.
At Thursday night’s debate, former President Donald Trump caused a stir when he said, without any proof, that immigrants crossing the U.S. border were “taking Black jobs.”
People have asked President Joe Biden what he would say to Black voters who are upset that his administration hasn’t done more to fix problems like the pay gap, the death rate for mothers, and the high rate of incarceration for Black Americans. Biden talked about how many small businesses owned by Black people were started during his time in office and how his administration worked to lower the cost of child care.
To this, Trump replied, “[Biden’s] big kill on the Black people is the millions of people he lets come in through the border.”
“Now they’re hiring Black people,” he said. “It could be 18 million, 19 million, or even 20 million.” And they’re taking jobs from Black people and Hispanic people. You haven’t seen it yet, but you will see the worst thing in our history.
There were a lot of questions, criticisms, and jokes online about what the former president meant by “Black jobs.”
“What exactly are Black and Hispanic Jobs?!!” asked the NAACP during the debate.
Politicians also added their two cents. As the head of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison wrote on X, “Just me at my Black job this morning.”
In a post on X, Mississippi Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson said, “The use of ‘Black Jobs’ by Donald Trump is highly concerning.”
He said, “Employment should be based on skills and merit, not race.” “Let’s stop using words that divide us and instead focus on giving all Americans the same chances.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that about 13% of people working in the U.S. are black worker. About 14% of people in the U.S. are Black.
People of color in the U.S. have a much higher unemployment rate than white people. A 2020 report from the Center for American Progress says that this gap is caused by structural factors such as racial discrimination, barriers to education, and mass incarceration that affects Black households more than other households.
Trump did the same thing while he was president as Biden did when he talked about lowering the unemployment rate for Black workers.
But it was during Biden’s time in office that the unemployment rate for Black workers fell to a record low.
Fear is being stirred up by comments like Trump’s that pit one marginalized group against the other, in this case Black Americans and undocumented immigrants. Hamilton is the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School.
In an interview with the independent news program “Democracy Now!” after the debate, Hamilton said, “His policies are dramatically framed in a fascist notion of relative status, whether he’s looking at Black Americans versus white Americans or trying to message to Black Americans.” “He presents a zero-sum scarcity framework: the fear that someone else will come along and take your jobs, instead of an economy that grows and there are plenty of jobs.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, dodged a question Thursday night about what Trump might have meant by the phrase “Black jobs” and whether it was offensive.
“I don’t think that offends some American voters,” Scott said in an interview with NBC after the debate. “I can tell you this: more jobs are what everyone wants, whether they are black, white, Hispanic, or Native American.”
Some people on X said that Trump’s comments showed he had a biased view of Black people because they made it sound like “Black jobs” were all low-paying jobs.
A new study from the Council of Economic Advisers shows that from 2019 to 2023, the number of Black workers in higher-paying industries like finance, professional services, and information technology rose. The number of Black workers in low-paying fields like leisure and hospitality and wholesale retail trade also went down during that time, the study found.
When asked for a comment, the Trump campaign did not answer right away.
One X user wrote, “These ‘Black jobs’ jokes are funny, but they take away from how serious that orange man’s racism toward us is.” “He has low opinion of us as people.”
