Terence Kuch

Here’s a sad hypothesis: U.S. employers like to hire Latinos (both legal and illegal) for low-wage jobs because most white consumers don’t object to seeing Latinos tending their yards, or doing their housecleaning, or putting a new roof on their house, or serving them hamburgers. Would these same white people be so complaisant if all these jobs were filled by African-Americans, or would many of them feel threatened?

The unemployment rate for black people is 16.5%, v. 8.8% for white people**. Not that African-Americans should be limited to low-wage work, but any job is better than none.

Last year I witnessed a confrontation between a black customer and a Latino employee at a fast food restaurant in Washington, D.C. The black man was agitated that the Latino had a job even though he didn’t have enough English to understand the black man’s order. We can all understand that.

** bls.gov: ‘civilian non-institutional population’, March 2010

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