Former President Donald J. Trump claimed during Thursday’s presidential debate that immigrants entering the United States illegally were taking “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs,” a baseless claim that Democrats immediately seized on as evidence picked up on the fact that Mr. Trump and the Republicans were not serious about winning the support of voters of color.
It also sparked a series of internet jokes and memes about what exactly a “black job” is.
“They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs, and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that will be the worst in our history,” Trump said on Thursday Migrants are crossing the southern US border. He then repeated the reference during a campaign rally in Virginia on Friday, adding that black Americans who have had jobs “for a long time” are losing their jobs to immigrants.
Black political strategists, elected officials and organization leaders quickly joined hundreds of social media users in posting photos of themselves at their workplaces and cracking jokes about the reductive and racist nature of the former president’s comments.
Among them was Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic House representative from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who took a photo with two women in her congressional office on Friday
Malcolm Kenyatta, a black Democrat from Pennsylvania and a surrogate for Mr. Biden’s campaign, quipped: “Have we ever figured out what a ‘black job’ is?” I’m asking about myself.”
And Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, also criticized Mr. Trump’s comments, writing on X that black Americans “are not limited to a #BlackJob.”
Republicans, seeking to exploit President Biden’s waning support among black voters, have made immigration a cornerstone of their appeals to the bloc, whose turnout could decide the election in November. Mr. Trump has said that migrants are “poisoning the blood of the country” and has repeatedly claimed that the migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are refugees from prisons and mental institutions, something the evidence does not support.
Immigrants have made up an increasingly larger share of the American workforce in recent years, but economists say their presence has been positive for the country’s economy. And while Mr. Trump claims that migrant workers are taking jobs away from American citizens, the number of foreign-born workers in the country is not large enough to offset the jobs created over the last three years.
The Democrats increasingly went on the offensive. In a statement, Michael Tyler, Mr. Biden’s communications director, pointed to the online reaction to Mr. Trump’s comments and said black voters “dragged Trump all night for his racist slurs.”
“You know Trump hasn’t done anything for black communities, so he’s trying to pit communities of color against each other as a distraction,” he said. “We won’t allow ourselves to be distracted. We see Trump’s racism clearly and that’s why black voters will reject him this November.”
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2024-06-29 01:52:22
www.nytimes.com