“Black Vote, Black Energy,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Phrase In Black, examines the problems and what’s at stake for Black America
Donald Trump internet hosting a Black Historical past Month celebration on the White Home, filled with shallow symbolism over substance?
I count on nothing much less from Trump — however the response from the largely Black viewers within the East Room of the White Home? That was embarrassingly disconnected from latest historical past.
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Trump walked on stage with legendary Black golfer Tiger Woods, who as soon as instructed Oprah Winfrey he described himself as “Cablinasian,” and he spent a great deal of his time on stage shouting out the Black Republicans within the viewers.
However these East Room Black Folks had been both in deep denial or deep REM sleep in latest months.
Nobody within the viewers questioned why Trump’s Secretary of Protection canceled Black Historical past Month occasions on the Pentagon or eliminated a Tuskegee Airmen video from Air Drive coaching.
Nobody complained about Trump revoking the 1965 govt order that banned racial discrimination in authorities employment and by authorities contractors.
So long as they acquired to smile in entrance of the white man within the White Home, the East Room Black Folks had been all good.
Nobody objected to Trump’s latest try to blame a tragic airplane crash on variety, fairness, and inclusion, or his administration’s ban on DEI all through the federal authorities.
And nobody talked about Trump’s ongoing effort to repeal the 14th Modification, which gave Black folks birthright citizenship in 1868.
So long as they acquired to smile in entrance of the white man within the White Home, the East Room Black Folks had been all good.
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The East Room Black Folks by no means dared to problem Trump when he diminished the Black students who put collectively “The 1619 Venture,” which traced the historical past of the primary enslaved Black folks dropped at the colonies by the British.
“The final administration tried to scale back all of American historical past to a single yr, 1619,” Trump lied to the Black Historical past Month crowd.
Nope, that’s not what occurred. The Biden-Harris administration didn’t write or invent “The 1619 Venture”; they only acknowledged its significance in American historical past.
And not one of the East Room Black Folks appeared to boost an eyebrow when Trump instructed them he needed immigrants to return to the U.S., so long as they got here right here legally, whereas by no means discussing his racist new federal coverage that enables solely white South Africans to return to America however punishes Black folks in that nation.
Nobody even checked him when he lied that he received 40% of the Black vote in 2024, as a substitute of the 13% that he really acquired. By no means thoughts the 95% of the Black vote he promised he would get eight years in the past.
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Nobody requested why he simply eradicated an environmental justice program that supplied 40% of the advantages from federal local weather investments to Black and Brown communities.
Nobody appeared bothered that he simply pardoned two law enforcement officials convicted within the homicide of a Black man in Washington, D.C., and gave clemency to 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Trump’s solely Black cupboard member, HUD Secretary Scott Turner, instructed the East Room Black Folks, “Each day I’ma lay it down for the folks of America.”
I want that had been true, however at his affirmation listening to in January, he couldn’t even lay it down for the Black folks dealing with racial discrimination in dwelling value determinations. And simply this week, a brand new report signifies HUD is definitely slicing this system that fights dwelling appraisal bias.
“We’re within the presence of the best president of all time,” Black Trump supporter Leo Terrell instructed the gang.
It’s just like the East Room Black Folks dwell in another universe, the place Trump didn’t simply spend the final yr mendacity concerning the first Black vp’s racial identification or making up ridiculous allegations that Haitian immigrants had been consuming canines and cats.
The East Room Black Folks have by some means created a miraculous cognitive dissonance that enables them to consider that essentially the most racist president in fashionable American historical past is definitely, by some means, their hero, simply because he allow them to come into the White Home.
That’s a surprisingly low bar.
“4 extra years!” they chanted. Nope. No, thanks. It’s solely been 4 weeks, and that’s already lengthy sufficient.
Keith Boykin is a New York Occasions–bestselling creator, TV and movie producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth School and Harvard Regulation College, Keith served within the White Home, cofounded the Nationwide Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET discuss present My Two Cents, and taught on the Institute for Analysis in African-American Research at Columbia College in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning creator and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.
