Racist white males have at all times chased Black girls.
In 1835, when Harriet Jacobs tried to carve out dignity from the hell of enslavement, her proprietor stalked her for years as a result of he was decided to own and break her.
When Celia, a 19-year-old enslaved lady in Missouri, lastly resisted her grasp’s rapes and killed him in 1855, the legislation itself chased her down, tried and hanged her to show that the system would sooner destroy a Black girl than admit her proper to defend her personal physique.
And when Margaret Garner ran throughout the frozen Ohio River in 1856, her white grasp was proper behind her, determined to pull her again into bondage.
The historical past of this nation is haunted by white males looking down Black girls as a result of their flight, their freedom, and their refusal to bow threatened the entire structure of white energy.
And now, right here we’re once more. Donald Trump, a racist convicted felon, has made Lisa Prepare dinner his obsession. She is a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, the primary Black girl ever appointed to that function, a place no white man in historical past has ever needed to defend so fiercely simply to exist in.
Trump tried to fireside her. The courts instructed him no. He tried once more. They instructed him no once more. Twice defeated, Trump escalated. And now, like a slavemaster who can not abide the concept of a Black girl out of his grip, he has dragged her case all the way in which to the Supreme Court docket, demanding Prepare dinner’s quick elimination.
As a result of he can not — he won’t — let the rulings stand. He can not enable a strong Black girl to defy him, to outlive him, or outlast his fury. Just like the slavemasters earlier than him, Trump can not sleep whereas the “runaway negress” stays past his grasp.
Why is he so fixated?
As a result of Lisa Prepare dinner embodies the one factor Trump can not management: legitimacy. She has the credentials, the experience, the history-making function. She is a Black girl sitting in some of the highly effective positions in international finance and is entrusted with selections that transfer markets and form economies. Her presence alone dismantles his fable that solely white males like him can govern. Her survival after his assaults would show that Black girls can’t be so simply erased. And for Trump, that may be a wound his ego can not survive.
However why her? Why Lisa Prepare dinner and no person else on the Board?
Trump has fumed about Jerome Powell for years, threatened to demote him, even mused about firing him outright. However he by no means dragged Powell into courtroom. He by no means filed emergency appeals to erase him. As a result of Trump doesn’t chase competence when it is available in a white swimsuit and tie. He chases it when it comes wrapped in Black womanhood. Each different governor represents continuity, however Prepare dinner represents rupture and the breaking of a ceiling that white males have guarded for over a century. She is historical past standing in his face. She is proof that the Fed’s energy doesn’t belong completely to males like him. That’s why she is the goal. That’s why he can not let her stand.
Trump’s battle on Prepare dinner just isn’t about mortgage kinds. That is about energy. It’s about whether or not a president can bend impartial establishments to his will. The Federal Reserve was designed to be insulated from political interference, exactly in order that selections about inflation, rates of interest, and financial coverage couldn’t be weaponized for partisan acquire. If Trump can take away Prepare dinner for allegations that predate her tenure, then each Fed governor is susceptible. Independence collapses. Markets lose religion. Coverage turns into hostage to presidential tantrums.
However Prepare dinner has not been Trump’s solely goal. Since clawing again the presidency in January, Trump has waged a scientific marketing campaign in opposition to Black girls in public energy.
He fired Carla Hayden, the primary Black girl Librarian of Congress, and the primary librarian ever to carry the function, by e mail. As a result of the Library of Congress is the nation’s reminiscence, he couldn’t tolerate a Black girl guarding the nation’s information, curating its reminiscence, shaping what historical past will get preserved. Higher to purge her than endure the sight of her authority.
He tried to oust Gwynne Wilcox, the primary Black girl on the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, in a transfer so flagrantly illegal {that a} decide ordered her reinstated. For a second, the courts compelled Trump to again down. However like Lisa Prepare dinner, Wilcox has been caught in his countless appeals together with her reinstatement stayed, her seat in limbo, her work stalled.
Wilcox represents labor, the employees who make the economic system run. And Trump made clear that when a Black girl sits in that chair, her presence itself is insupportable. Because it stands now, the Supreme Court docket has frozen her reinstatement, leaving Wilcox off the Board whereas the authorized battle drags on.
He stripped former vice chairman Kamala Harris of her Secret Service element. He ended the safety Joe Biden had prolonged, leaving her uncovered as she steps out on a nationwide ebook tour. In a rustic the place political violence just isn’t an abstraction however a every day menace, Trump intentionally made her susceptible. That was a sign to his base that even a former vice chairman could possibly be put at risk if she is a Black girl who defied him.
Even on the native degree, the smear campaigns comply with. Newark Metropolis Council President LaMonica McIver’s indictment for assault in opposition to immigration officers in June didn’t occur in a vacuum; it got here straight out of Trump’s Justice Division. She is the primary sitting member of Congress criminally charged below his new time period, and the goal was no accident.
McIver is a Black girl wielding oversight energy on the very website of Trump’s immigration crackdown, and for that, she was criminalized. Verify the hypocrisy: Trump pardoned white Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol and assaulted officers, but his DOJ is dragging McIver into courtroom for allegedly “impeding” federal brokers throughout an oversight go to. Then the media refrain chimed in, with Politico dismissing her indictment as a “flop,” trivializing her wrestle and feeding Trump’s bigger narrative that Black girls in energy are illegitimate. So insurrectionists get to stroll free, however a Black girl doing her job is handled like a prison.
Piece all these assaults collectively, and you’ll see the blueprint. Hayden represents information. Wilcox represents labor. Prepare dinner represents cash. Harris represents safety. McIver represents politics. One after the other, Trump has gone after each pillar of American life {that a} Black girl dared to carry. It is a racialized purge.
And the hypocrisy couldn’t be any louder.
Trump is a convicted felon, discovered responsible on 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data. His empire is constructed on fraud, chapter, and deceit. And but he dares to name Lisa Prepare dinner dishonest, paint Carla Hayden as unfit, deal with Gwynne Wilcox as expendable, and finish Kamala Harris’s safety as if her life just isn’t price guarding. His corruption is everlasting, however theirs is invented. His sins are excused, however their competence is criminalized.
The chase is the purpose.
Simply as Jacobs, Celia, and Garner have been hunted of their time, Trump is looking now. The slave grasp has been changed by a racist president, the hounds by courtroom filings, the public sale block by political headlines. However the logic is similar: when a Black girl runs, resists, or just stands her floor, the entire equipment of white energy mobilizes to pull her down.
Lisa Prepare dinner’s case is the sharpest fringe of that blade. If Trump succeeds on the Supreme Court docket, the precedent shall be devastating. The Federal Reserve will not be impartial. Presidents will have the ability to purge governors for any cause, actual or imagined. Each dissenting voice might be silenced. And the symbolic message shall be even worse: if Lisa Prepare dinner might be erased, no Black girl in energy is protected.
If she prevails, the that means is simply as highly effective. It’ll show that the legislation nonetheless locations limits on presidential vengeance. It’ll show {that a} Black girl can struggle again and win. It’ll show that independence is stronger than rage. That’s the reason Trump can not let Lisa Prepare dinner win. As a result of her survival would expose the weak point of his authoritarian grip and shatter the centuries of epigenetic inheritance that instructed white males they might at all times chase, catch, and crush Black girls with impunity.
The courts instructed him no. Twice. Now all eyes flip to the Supreme Court docket to see if they may lastly slam the door on his obsession. However right here’s the reality: whether or not Lisa Prepare dinner stays or goes, the sample is simple. Trump has declared battle on Black girls in each enviornment of American life — information, labor, cash, politics, even security itself. And that battle just isn’t new. It’s the oldest story on this nation: white males chasing, looking, punishing Black girls for daring to face free.
Each lash, each chain, each courtroom ambush has been about defending the lie on the heart of white supremacy. The lie is that white males are the one ones born to rule, and everybody else exists to serve, obey, or be destroyed. Lisa Prepare dinner isn’t just preventing for her seat on the Fed. She is standing in a river of historical past, and each “no” to Trump is a “sure” to the generations of Black girls who refused to bow.
Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and writer of “Spare The Youngsters: Why Whupping Youngsters Gained’t Save Black America” and the forthcoming “Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Youngsters In Jim Crow America.” Learn her Substack right here.
SEE ALSO:
There’s Outrage For Jimmy Kimmel, Not For Black Journalists
How Donald Trump is Reframing What Counts As Prison
