If DeMint really believes the problem is that people don't want to return to work, he's seriously out of touch with reality. But whether or not DeMint actually believes this narrative, it helps him and other Republicans turn our economic problems into an excuse to destroy social programs that help all of us, while continuing to keep taxes for corporations and the rich very low.

It's also a way to direct some Americans' rightful anger about the economy away from the banks and Wall Street and toward poor, out-of-work Americans instead. While it's not explicitly racial, it plays on well-established stereotypes and fears about black people. It's part of a larger race-baiting narrative coming from the right that implies that President Obama and other Democrats are trying to redistribute whites' hard-earned wealth to lazy, poor, undeserving minorities. Unfortunately, Democrats aren't doing enough to challenge this narrative head-on and expose it for the cheap race-baiting it is.

At ColorOfChange, we're going to continue to fight to create jobs and job-training programs and to protect and expand programs that help shield the most vulnerable among us from total catastrophe. Right now we've joined USAction, Change.org and CREDO Action in a campaign to end discrimination against the unemployed. We're circulating an online petition to Monster.com and other job-listing websites, calling on them to stop publishing help-wanted ads that discriminate against the unemployed.

Rashad Robinson is the executive director of ColorOfChange.org, a black political organization.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.