Presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump has been flying under the radar for the last few days with all the attention being on Joe Biden and his depleting debating skills.
But as the dust settles on Joe Biden and his debating debacle, all eyes are back on Trump, and the American public are now scrutinizing exactly what he meant when he said that “illegal migrants are taking all the black jobs”.
Attacking Biden, he said during the presidential debate: “The fact that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking Black jobs now. 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’s going to be the worst in our history.”
He didn’t explain what he meant.
So what exactly is a black job? The phrase was meant to tell black voters that illegal immigrants may take more jobs away from Americans, but the phrase reeked of racism and Democrats and black leaders found it humiliating.
Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison said on X on June 27, “What the hell is a Black Job!”.
President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Derrick Johnson said, “There is no such things as a Black job. That misinformed characterization is a denial of the ubiquity of Black talent. We are doctors, lawyers, school teachers, police officers and firefighters. The list goes on.”
Johnson reiterated that a “black job” is an American job and that it was of grave concern that a presidential candidate would seek to make such a distinction.
He also said that the divisive nature of this comment was typical of Trump.
Trump’s allies, however, pushed back, saying that his comment had a broader message that was being missed.
President of the Black Conservative Federation Diante Johnson said, “He meant the jobs of Black people, And we’ve been using that term for a while.”
Johnson said that Trump simply meant that instead of black people having unlimited accessibility to all types of jobs, illegal immigrants were now taking their jobs.
His comment also led to a slew of memes and TikTok videos of people posting videos and photos of themselves at work with titles like, ‘Hello from my black job,” or “This is my black job.”