There’s been a big flap over Mexico President Vincente Fox’s comment that Mexican immigants were willing to take jobs “that not even blacks want to do in the United States.” Dimmy Karras mocks it as a stereotype of black Americans as lazy and unemployed. The Colorblind Society writes, “I’m not sure who he is denigrating more, blacks or his own people. Though Fox likely sees himself as white, not brown. It is clear, however, that he sees blacks as the low caste in the US, as all foriegners do.”
I’m inclined to defend Fox. What if we were to substitute “the lowest on the socio-economic ladder” for “blacks” in his statement? It wouldn’t have had any racial overtones, to be sure, but would it have been all that different in substance?
You may disagree with my reading, but in any case, the question we have on hand, is to what extent is there an American underclass that is in large part black? According to Colorblind Society, Jesse Jackson worries about stereotype, “Most poor Americans are not black, they’re white.” I’m all for resisting stereotype - and aware that a black middle class is substantial and growing. But if we make the case that there’s no substantial connection between an economic underclass and race, then the progressive tendency to treat race as a class-inflected (though not class-reducible) vector of oppression no longer makes any sense. And I sense that this would change the implications of Jesse Jackson’s policy and politics.
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