Rafael Cruz: The ‘average Black’ doesn’t understand why the minimum wage is bad

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/02/rafael-cruz-the-average-black-doesnt-understand-why-the-minimum-wage-is-bad/



Rafael Cruz: The ‘average Black’ doesn’t understand why the minimum wage is bad
By Arturo Garcia
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 17:22 EDT

Conservative activist Rafael Cruz argued that African-Americans need to be “educated” to oppose minimum wage laws, citing the work of a Black conservative member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Buzzfeed reported.

“Jason Riley said in an interview, Did you know before we had minimum wage laws, Black unemployment and white unemployment were the same? If we increase the minimum wage, Black unemployment will skyrocket,” Cruz said during a speech to the Western Williamson County Republican Club in Texas last month. “See, he understands it, but the average Black does not.”

Riley and other conservatives have argued for years that minimum wage laws disproportionately affect the Black community. In 2011, Riley wrote that they “remain politically popular, especially among liberals enamored of wealth redistribution schemes.”

More recently, Riley criticized Attorney General Eric Holder in connection to the federal investigation into the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last month, saying Holder should tell people protesting against police there to “pull up their pants and finish school.”