Post Debate thoughts: The distraction that is "black and brown jobs"
...and how the notion behind 'the big kill' is the real threat. Make it Make Sense Vol 15
Hi everyone out there weathering this latest news cycle. A news cycle that seems to, inexorably, descend further and further past the supposed rock bottom we thought was the point of no return. With each Supreme Court decision we grind a bit deeper into the bedrock. And I know there are folks out there hitting their breaking point in terms of shitty-news-overload. God knows I’m pretty close to it myself. But bear with me as I wanted to unpack one particularly shitty moment from the “No-one-can-say-they-won,” travesty of a presidential debate from last week.
That moment being when Trump talked about the “millions of people” allowed through the border taking “black jobs”. It’s a doozy of a sentiment, even by the already thread bare standards we hold Trump’s stream of consciousnesses, barely coherent, word vomit. A lot of the discourse has been on that label of “black jobs” like- what the heck does that even mean right? Which I get. But, like so many other things that sentient potato sack garbles out of his mouth, the real insidiousness of his statement comes when we zoom out. Yes, the notion of black or hispanic jobs is another racist, “he said the quiet part out loud,” moment. But it’s what he said right before that that raises my hackles. When talking about those “millions of people” (ie immigrants) he describes it as “the big kill” against black and hispanic people. That, to me, is the real scary notion. It’s that notion of pitting black and brown people against each other that I’ve seen so many others perpetuate. It’s this “big kill” angle that reminded me of the worst, most regrettable handshake I’ve ever been involved in. A handshake that haunts me to this day and feels like a prelude to this ever devolving reality we call our current societal landscape. Let’s talk about it.
I know, like so much white noise, most of us have tuned out the reams of misinformation that comes out the guys mouth. But for the sake of clarity, let’s go to the transcript.
“ . . .He caused inflation. As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is 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 and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. 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.”
Bolded emphasis mine, of course. Here’s the handshake that this statement reminds me of. I’ll try to condense the backstory as much as I can. When I was about a year or so out of high school I worked with my brother for a summer. We did roofing. Well, I did the grunt work while my brother did most of the actual roofing work. We worked for this manic, disheveled, alcoholic supposedly formerly upright guy that I’ll call Lloyd, because that was his name.
Lloyd was getting by on his past contractor reputation, from before the drink started to consume him. (He’d regularly finish his first 6-pack before the morning sun burned the dew off the lawns of the houses we were working on.) Despite his alcoholism, and because my brother had amassed a small crew of other workers, we were getting jobs done. Things started to fall apart when Lloyd got greedy and began taking on more and more jobs. Multiple jobs at different sites that we couldn’t take on. To make up for this deficit Lloyd looked to amass another crew, a crew that, it turned out, happened to be composed of all black people. And you can probably see how quickly south this is all going.
Let me set the scene. Lloyd ended up screwing over all of us. The “hispanics”. The black folks. None of our crews were getting paid. Day by day things were getting more heated. Until one day my brother got angry with Lloyd and demanded that we got paid, then and there. Turns out that I got the short end of the stick and became the designated driver that had to chauffeur Lloyd to the nearest bank for a withdrawal. (Long time readers might have already picked up that I’ve written about this before, with small changes to names.) The following is taken from an early draft of, “A Story about Work”. In which I play out this scene….
I entered the driver’s side of Lloyds’s truck and immediately rolled down the window, as was the tradition. He fumbled with the passenger-side door as the empty beer cans rattled around the floor.
“Jesus,” I muttered to myself.
We drove to the bank in silence, which was fine by me but must have rubbed him the wrong way. “You know I wasn’t meaning you all any harm, right?” Lloyd asked.
“I don’t care, man. As long as it's behind us.”
“But you know that other team, right? Here’s the thing with those black folks. They are always bitching about their money. They came up to me with puffed-up chests weeks before you guys did. What’s that say about you?”
My jaw clenched as I stared ahead.
“But that’s just the way it works. See, the black guys, they’ll always demand payment first. That’s just how it works. But you—” Lloyd pointed at me for emphasis. “You guys. The Mexicans. You’ll work and work and rarely ask for the money. Not until way past the point of any other group, that’s for damn sure. And that’s why I’ll always sing your praises. To the Mexicans. To the workers,” he said and looked at me, in his smelly truck with no AC. Until I finally looked over and saw he had his hand outstretched for a handshake. I looked at his hand, then at his ruddy face. I listened to his labored breathing as he sat. Waiting. I shook his hand and pulled up to the bank as he got our money from the bank teller.
I hated myself for a long time for that handshake.
Still do. It’s been more than two decades since then. But I still regret it. I wish I would have spat in his face. Thrown his money back at him. But I didn’t. I shook his hand.
Complicit in the machinations of a man whose brain was ravaged by years of chemical abuse, but who still had this insidious power over me. Who had centuries of scape goating and manipulation of one sect against another. Poor against middle class. Black against brown. City vs rural. Who reveled in the opportunity to pit these sects against other, more vulnerable groups. Newer immigrants. LGBTQ groups. I am no longer talking about Lloyd. I am talking about the ever present handshakes. The ones that Lloyd extended to me in his truck. The ones that people like Trump extend before us as they mutter about the big kill. Don’t concentrate on the handshake. The hand shake is the phrase “black or hispanic jobs”. The true evil lies in the intent behind the handshake. The machinations of pitting us against each other. The fatigue brought on by shock and awe news manipulation. Don’t concentrate on the handshakes or you’ll miss the true evil that they are perpetuating. I can’t go back and deny Lloyd’s handshake but I can resist the current bait before me. To see that behind the outstretched hand is the rhetoric against immigrants that is the true end game. Don’t forget that Trump’s launch speech, the one that seemed to define so much of his still-running game plan, centered around disparaging immigrants. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best . . . They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” We must fight this rhetoric before the conman can use it, once more, to shake hands with a country condemned by the lessons it refuses to learn from.
-C