Hobbs’ Tuesday Talking Points Friends, consider the following passage from an essay penned by Attorney Ian Smith for the conservative magazine National Review: “If Democrats are going to take for granted such a core constituency (blacks), Republicans attempting to win over blacks, such as Rand Paul, should push for an immigration policy that serves black interests. Better immigration laws could allow blacks to compete for occupations they used to dominate, like meat-packing and janitorial work, at wages that would give a much needed lift to millions of American workers. Let’s stop watching black workers be displaced — it’s black political leaders who ought to be out of a job.” While it is pretty obvious that Mr. Smith is seeking to divide blacks and Latinos as a core and growing joint Democratic constituency, my question is this: have we reached a point where some blacks will shun such blue collar jobs in the first place? Full disclosure, I am only a couple of generations removed from sharecropper/migrant workers/domestic workers in my family as both of my parents were the first in their respective families to graduate from college. While most of my family members in my generation are college educated white collar professionals or tradesmen, I admit that I have some other relatives who seem completely unmotivated to honor our ancestors through hard work and could not care less about being lazy or shiftless in a very literal sense. So the question, then, is whether the illegal Latino immigrants are “stealing” jobs as janitors, agricultural workers and the like from black workers, or are blacks not competing for said jobs in certain markets? Or is it some combination of the two? Thoughts?
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 15:10:47 +0000
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