A cartoon about a car exposes how racial suspicion runs on class envy
In this cartoon, a white man in a “Make America Great Again” cap glares from a ragged trailer porch. He clutches a report card of straight Fs and sneers at a smiling Black driver in a late-model Lexus. “He must’ve stolen that car,” the man says.
It’s a tight little scene with a big message: In America, too many people see Black prosperity as a crime scene.
How Did He Afford That?
The joke lands because we know the script. A Black person enjoys something expensive, and someone decides it can’t be legitimate. That reflex didn’t arrive by accident. It’s the product of decades of TV news mug shots, redlined neighborhoods, and politicians who sell fear like late-night infomercials — such as President Donald Trump.
This cartoon also reflects real life. My brother is a doctor who drives a luxury car. He’s seen the stares and felt the resentment. The unspoken phrase is always the same: “How did you afford that?”
He’s regularly tailed by police. Another friend, a Black lawyer, gets the same treatment — followed, pulled over, then met with surprise when he calmly cites the law back to the officer.
The dynamic also surfaced in a recent CNN interview with white voters upset about the economy. One man said, “There’s a Black guy in our community who drives a Lexus. How did he do that?” I thought, maybe he’s an educated professional?
The Politics of Resentment
The Republican Party exploits these tensions with a bait-and-switch. Instead of doing the hard work of improving life for working-class Americans, it tells audiences that people of color — Black people, Latinos, Asians — somehow stole a white birthright of economic superiority. That message has been in rotation for decades. MAGA is simply the latest iteration.
Trump leaned into it. MAGA is built on white resentment. But ever the conman, Trump works the fears of working-class white Americans and delivers nothing. During his first run, he complained that his friends’ sons struggled to get into Ivy League colleges. But I’m sure he had no trouble buying his kids’ way into most colleges.
But the unspoken threat was clear: Working-class whites were supposedly having college spots stolen by lazy Black people. It’s a cop-out for mediocre white students. Scapegoating Black and brown students is easier than studying for the SAT.
This is how it works: Build political power by stoking racial grievance, then sell resentment as policy. It’s a circular economy of outrage — profitable for campaigns, poisonous for communities.
Scapegoating Immigrants Won’t Fix Housing
The MAGA GOP is still running the same playbook, especially on housing. The latest pitch claims that deporting millions of Latinos would lower home prices — that “illegal immigrants” are inflating the market. That’s not how housing works.
Prices are high because supply is tight and deep-pocketed investors are buying up homes as assets, keeping ordinary buyers on the sidelines. In California, whole blocks sit dark at night because properties are warehoused by corporate money. A starter home now costs about $250,000 in the heartland — and far more on the coasts. Wage earners can’t compete with all-cash bids and institutional portfolios.
Blaming immigrants won’t build a single affordable home. But fixing economic policy is hard. It’s easier for the GOP to play the race card.
Grading on a Curve of Grievance
That report card of Fs is the cartoon’s sharpest jab. It says the quiet part out loud: Underachievement seeks a scapegoat. Instead of asking for tutoring, job training, or better schools, the character chooses an easier fix — accuse.
In real life, that mindset fuels bans on honest history, voter suppression, and traffic stops that turn into funerals. When you grade the world on a curve of grievance, you always find someone to blame.
Here’s what the panel doesn’t depict but strongly implies: the grind behind that Lexus. Maybe it’s overtime, student loans, a side hustle, or a small business that finally broke through. The point isn’t the car. It’s the right to own anything without being treated like a suspect.
Art works when it forces a choice. This cartoon offers two: Keep telling yourself that success you don’t understand must be stolen, or confront the systems that keep millions stuck on the porch with an empty cooler and a fistful of excuses.
If America wants to be great, start here: Stop criminalizing Black joy. Trade suspicion for curiosity. The solution to this problem is complex and requires a serious answer — one not rooted in stereotypes or racial resentment.
