Behold! The BLACK JOBS!
The recent presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump sparked a lot of controversy, chief of it being a wanton stereotypical comment from Trump about “Black jobs.” On two separate occasions during the June 27th debate, Trump insisted that immigrants are “taking Black jobs,” a coded and weighty statement that Rashawn Ray, a University of Maryland sociology professor and senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, called flat-out racist.
“Black people’s relegation to underemployment hurts the U.S. economy by weakening local communities. Due to systemic oppression including a lack of educational opportunities and hiring and wage discrimination, Black men, in particular, are over-concentrated in the top 10 jobs expected to be obsolete in 20 years and underrepresented in the fastest growing professions,” Ray told Forbes.
Many Black people, Ray included, knew exactly what Trump meant by the statement, the former president reinforcing the type of explicit bias and systemic racism that contributes to the underrepresentation of generations of Black people in wealth-generating careers and the overrepresentation of Black people in low-paying occupations like janitorial service, factory work, food service, housekeeping, security, and transit jobs.
Still, in true Black people fashion, we made lemonade out of lemons, taking what was a clearly offensive and racist trope used by a candidate vying for our votes nonetheless and creating joy. Instead of wallowing in the pain, Black people took to social media in droves, using the hashtag #BlackJobs to point out our representation across industries and sectors. Many professionals, judges, engineers, etc., made it clear that they love their “Black jobs” and are here to stay.
One social media user, Monte Washington, posted a video of himself and his friends at the golf course as he attempted to clarify what exactly defines a Black job. He headed around the course, asking each of the men, “What is a Black job?”
The group responded in jest, revealing their extremely successful Black jobs as surgeons, attorneys, tech company VPs, real estate developers, and CEOs. They poked fun at Trump’s ludicrous assumption that Black jobs can only be those in low-paying or labor sectors while creating a necessary moment of representation for Black men and the community at large.
Check out the viral clip below and note the REAL Black jobs! 🗣 CLOCK IT!
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Cover photo: TikTok User Goes Viral After Highlighting the Real ‘Black Jobs’ We Occupy/Photo Credit: MonteWash03/RevoltTV/Instagram