# Black Americans Get Jobs After Ice Raid



## UmSumayyah (Dec 29, 2019)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/us/mississippi-ice-raids-poultry-plants.html

_But Mr. Grant clearly remembered Aug. 7, the day the Trump administration performed sweeping immigration raids on seven chicken plants in central Mississippi. He remembered the news flashing on his phone: 680 Hispanic workers arrested. He remembers seeing an opportunity. _

_“I figured there should be some jobs,” he said._

_He figured right._
......
_Then there was Mr. Grant, only two years out of high school and still finding his way in the world. He said it felt good to be earning $11.23 an hour, even if the new job entailed cutting off necks and pulling out guts on a seemingly endless conveyor of carcasses. It was about $4 better, he said, than what he used to earn at a Madison County cookie factory. _

_But he also called the raids “cruel” and “mean.” There were moments when the necks and guts and ambivalence and guilt all mixed together so that he wondered whether he wanted to stick with the job._

_“It’s like I stole it,” he said, “and I really don’t like what I stole.”_
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The article contains a brief history of the job, it used to be done by white people, protests/boycotts by black people helped them get hired for the jobs as well.  From what I have read previously about chicken plant work, it's not the safest occupation.


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## Brwnbeauti (Dec 29, 2019)

Naw, that job was stolen from him. 
We’re too empathetic sometimes.


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## kimpaur (Dec 29, 2019)

But I thought illegal immigrants were taking jobs nobody wanted? (*yes I'm being sarcastic)


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## Farida (Dec 29, 2019)

kimpaur said:


> But I thought illegal immigrants were taking jobs nobody wanted? (*yes I'm being sarcastic)


Lol...yeah what those companies really mean is they take jobs where they severely underpay and mistreat them that nobody who was here legally would work.


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## UmSumayyah (Dec 29, 2019)

Brwnbeauti said:


> Naw, that job was stolen from him.
> We’re too empathetic sometimes.


$160 more a week before taxes, even if it's around $112 more a week after, is a significant amount.

The people they are supposedsu organized to serve are better off and the local  NAACP was upset and making comparisons to slavery. 

Amazing.


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## Theresamonet (Dec 29, 2019)

> And yet much of the outrage over the August raids has come from leaders in Mississippi’s black community. Constance Slaughter-Harvey, a renowned local lawyer and civil rights activist who was the first black woman to receive a law degree from the University of Mississippi, called the raids a “Gestapo action.”



 Of course. 



> He also said the authorities discovered 400 instances of identity theft that had been perpetrated against legal United States residents.



And not only were they taking American jobs, but stealing identities too.


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## Brwnbeauti (Dec 29, 2019)

UmSumayyah said:


> $160 more a week before taxes, even if it's around $112 more a week after, is a significant amount.
> 
> The people they are supposedsu organized to serve are better off and the local  NAACP was upset and making comparisons to slavery.
> 
> Amazing.


I’m from Mississippi. That is a living wage.
The NAACP should be ashamed, minimizing slavery in that way.


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## discodumpling (Dec 30, 2019)

Guilty for what?? I wish these folks well, poultry processing is not for weak people. Physically or mentally. As I understand the article AA's ain't new to this and once dominated the industry. When Black people wanted the money to match the work, factory owners organized trips to Mexico to pick up desperate people who would work for next to nothing. 
I hope these new Black people have the fortitude to stick with it make it better and then take over the industry....again!


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## yamilee21 (Dec 30, 2019)

A bit of a missed opportunity... with the processing plants initially so desperate to find replacement workers, it would have been a good moment to unionize, and gain better working conditions. Hopefully some of that can still happen.


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## Everything Zen (Dec 31, 2019)

^^^ This is EXACTLY the right time.


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## Gin&Tonic (Dec 31, 2019)

This forum is full of women who shame those who speak out about how illegal people take jobs from our people. They say that our people should be better than those jobs. Well, some of our people need those jobs. I hope some of you can come down off of your high horses and start to have more empathy for your own. But then I suspect some of the naysayers are themselves, immigrants.


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## UmSumayyah (Jan 2, 2020)

Brwnbeauti said:


> I’m from Mississippi. That is a living wage.
> The NAACP should be ashamed, minimizing slavery in that way.


This is a good way to get the population to turn against you.  You don't see La Raza wringing their hands over African-American problems.


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## intellectualuva (Jan 8, 2020)

Everything I want to say has been said. 

I hope they fight for better wages, check that NAACP for being ridiculous and having misplaced priorities and bury that guilt. They didnt steal anything AT ALL. 

11.23 an hour is a living wage if not close to it in certain parts of Miss. I wish them the best and improved working conditions.


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