One of Michelle Obama’s most memorable zingers at the Democratic National Convention referred to former president Donald Trump’s comment in June that immigrants are taking “Black jobs.” She asked, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?”
It follows a slew of similar jokes — from a TikTok parody of Mexican workers stealing a UPS driver’s livelihood to Simon Biles’ “I love my Black job” tweet after becoming the most decorated gymnast of all time. Black New Yorkers Epicenter NYC spoke with, from Jamaica in Queens to Crown Heights in Brooklyn to the northwest Bronx, also found the idea ludicrous.
“When you ask me about Black jobs or white jobs or Hispanic jobs, I think that’s a ridiculous thing,” Dr. Wendy Ward, an anesthesiologist and holistic health coach, told Epicenter NYC. “You’re either qualified or you’re not.”
But what makes Trump’s statement so laughable? After all, the idea of newer immigrants “taking” jobs from American workers has historically been taken so seriously it has led to laws restricting immigration.
The answer might lie in Trump’s awkward substitution of Black people in a type of fear-mongering that is typically directed toward white workers.
First, why we shouldn’t give Trump “too much credit”
That’s what social science experts like Dr. Bryan Warde, a professor of social welfare at Lehman College, told Epicenter NYC. Warde doesn’t see the immigrant’s seizure of “Black jobs” as a common narrative but as an “off-the-cuff thing” Trump said. Warde’s belief echoes recent critiques that some members of the public and mainstream media often bend over backwards to make sense of Trump’s gibberish and non sequiturs — like his response to a question on child care policy on Thursday.
Warde also doesn’t see Trump’s rhetoric as a strategic appeal to white voters, as some have claimed about Trump’s decision to attend the National Association of Black Journalists panel (where Trump first dropped the “Black jobs” idea).
Doing so gives “too much credit” to someone who’s often “off-brand” but can’t handle hearing he is off-brand, Warde says: “I’d be more [open to thinking] that this was thought-out if it was by anybody other than Trump,” he said. “At that meeting, what you saw was his inability to deal with Black people altogether … He’s like a bull in a china shop.”
Trump ignores, for instance, that many newly arrived immigrants, especially in the city, are Black.
“Our language when we talk about immigrants is not precise,” Warde said. “If you’re thinking about the Spanish-speaking diaspora and [other] countries, within them, there are Black people. … To conflate immigrants and Black Americans and not make the distinction about who we’re talking about, to me, becomes this kind of dangerous rhetoric.”
Apart from his history of racist attacks against former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Black female journalists, Trump has said Black voters are drawn to him because of his criminal indictments and mugshot.
Pandering to Black workers
“He panders so poorly to Black voters, that he thinks he can just say, ‘these are your jobs that they’re taking — these are Black jobs,’ ” said Dr. Shirley Leyro, associate professor of social sciences, human services, and criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
However stereotypical or bumbling, Trump’s use of “Black jobs” is tied to a more commonplace tactic than the narrative he cobbled together. Wealthy white politicians vying for the Black vote is as old as the 15th Amendment.
In 1958, both the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial nominees in New York went out of their way to jockey for a place next to (the already famous) Martin Luther King, Jr. during his visit to Harlem. They wanted to win the Black vote.
When King was stabbed, the governor running for re-election (who privately made racist remarks, including doubts about Black people’s intelligence) even stormed Harlem Hospital to demand details of King’s medical treatment and to rush to his side in time for a photo op.
Nearly six decades later, Trump has used MLK Jr.’s name in similar misguided attempts to pander to Black voters. He endorsed a controversial gubernatorial candidate by comparing him to MLK Jr. multiple times. And in August, he compared the size of his speech crowds to those of MLK Jr.
“Where in the world did he get in his mind that the last rally he had was bigger than Martin Luther King’s?” Leyro said. “He didn’t say any other speech — he didn’t say, ‘oh, this is bigger than when Hillary Clinton was here.’ He is so desperate for the Black vote that he will reference, in his mind, whatever Black reference he can mention to be able to get a vote.”
Playing on economic anxieties
Still, no matter how attuned most Black Americans are to this kind of political pandering, pitting American workers against immigrants plays into a pervasive imagining of the undocumented Mexican immigrant, Warde says.
While the target audience for this narrative isn’t typically Black Americans, variations of the same xenophobic trope are at play: “illegal” immigrants are taking your jobs; they are bringing crime across the border. These are recycled so often in part because, historically, they have been successful in political campaigns.
“He just throws it at the wall because it’s just something that, at this point, resonates with people,” Warde said. “They need someone to blame, and immigrants are it.”
Blame for what? A recent analysis by the New School of the impact of immigrants on New York City’s job market shows that the number of U.S.-born employed New Yorkers is at an all-time high. And unemployment among Black and Latino workers (Trump also mentioned “Hispanic jobs” at the June panel) has dropped.
The author of the New School report told Epicenter NYC the narrative tactics aren’t grounded in any evidence, so people use them at their whim. But they might resonate more when times are hard. And trying economic times aren’t always about how the economy is doing, but about how it’s doing for you, which is often worse for people across a certain class, race or ethnicity, and gender.
In other words, if your job doesn’t pay enough for you to pay your rent, it doesn’t matter that you have a job — or that immigrants aren’t trying to take your job. Survival mode is real and disproportionately affects the Black and Latino workers Trump addressed with his comment.
An anxiety-induced scarcity mindset can affect people’s judgment.
“When the economy really doesn’t serve its people, then what people do is they look downwards — they don’t look upwards at the way wealth has been concentrated,” Warde said.
“What do you mean, a ‘Black job’?”
Warde believes demographic anxiety among some white people, not just economic anxiety among non-white people, helps explain why xenophobic tropes in political campaigns like Trump’s are so successful. Fears of becoming a racial minority fuel some of his supporters, The Intercept reports.
Much like anxiety over the U.S. population makeup, representation in jobs is also rooted in a history of fear from white Americans — not just towards immigrants but also Black people. This was especially true for Black people that walked outside the bounds of jobs historically held by former enslaved people.
“If there was such a thing as a ‘Black job,’ it was a job that was within the traditional sphere, but whatever was the lowest on that rung within that — the foundry worker, the person who was doing the most menial work,” Warde said.
Ward, the anesthesiologist, was one of few Black doctors when she started her career in the early 1990s. She faced racial bias from patients who were skeptical she was adequately trained.
“But at the end of the day, we can’t stay in a job that we’re not qualified for,” said Ward. “So what do you mean by a ‘Black job’ or a ‘Hispanic job’? … It’s ‘qualified,’ ‘unqualified.’ They just won’t accept the fact that sometimes a Black or Hispanic is qualified for a ‘white’ job, that’s all.”
But this “Black job” and “white job” dichotomy just doesn’t cut it, she says: “You can’t paint with a broad-stroke paintbrush. You have to allow people to be who they are.”
This is part of Epicenter NYC’s coverage of underrepresented communities and issues around the 2024 elections. Read more of our political stories here and check out our election site here.
