Quick observation from last weekend: If the pundit class in our country had not been overwhelmingly white, the format of Thursday’s debate would have revolved around Donald Trumpopen racism and not Joe Biden‘s speech pattern.
Because Trump’s false and intolerant claim that immigrants are taking “black jobs” immediately sparked a widespread backlash — and is likely the most talked about moment of the debate.
Trump and his campaign have tried to turn black people against immigrants (despite the fact that some black people are immigrants) himself) to promote xenophobia in the hopes of helping his election. His claim of “black jobs” was a tortured attempt to do so, despite the black unemployment rate hitting record lows under the Biden administration.
By the way, experts have now done what CNN failed to do during the debate itself: they have debunked Trump’s claim.
It is therefore remarkable that Trump’s team continues to repeat this claim. Marco Rubiowho effectively took it upon himself to be Trump’s racism translator, tried to clean up the comments in the spin room on debate night. It didn’t go well.
“When you flood a country with millions of people,” the Florida Republican argued, “you’re going to have more competition for jobs. That’s true. And those workers are willing to do it for lower wages.”
Rubio used racist and dehumanizing language here to imply that “black jobs” are…low-wage jobs. As an example, he cited construction jobs. I would venture to say that the majority of black people are not eager to work in what are often grueling construction jobs, but that almost misses the point, which is that the senator is simply wrong. Evidence shows that immigrants actually motivation Creating employment.
Nevertheless, Trump himself repeated this claim at a rally in Virginia on Saturday, saying that immigration is “the worst thing that happens to black people” because immigrants “take black people’s jobs.”
Trump takes one of the ugliest lines from his debate and turns it into a mantra.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
