CASH MICHAELS
And my answer always is, “Nah. I could never make up even half the crazy stuff that’s been going on lately.”
For instance, take the Republican-led state House Tuesday ratifying a new mask bill that allows any flippin' body off the street to walk up to me, and legally tell me, a cancer patient, to take my medical protective mask off, just because they think I'm a protester and think I should be in jail.
Gov. Cooper, get out your veto pen, and let these crazy right-wingers know what time it is, please! Don't worry, if they override, someone will have a big, fat, juicy federal lawsuit hot and ready for 'em.
And take, for example, this business about Black people increasingly supporting Trump - you know, America’s “man of conviction” for rape, tax fraud and 34 counts of felony falsification of business records to make hush money payments - for re-election as president. The polls reportedly show President Joe Biden steadily losing Black support, while Trump is steadily gaining Black support.
If I wanted to write a horror movie, that would be it!
Even though I’ve read numerous stories, and heard a plethora of interviews, like the recent one with second son, Eric, the dullest knife in the Trump draw, who told Fox Business News,"Look at the African American vote, right? That’s swinging over to Donald Trump in spades.”
Is Eric Trump even smart enough to know any Black people?
I still can’t get my arms around the concept.
Who, during the 2016 campaign, told Black people they should vote for him because, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”
(For the record, while many hardworking African-Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, that is NOT the same as living in poverty. And while many of us have children who make the most out of the schools they’re assigned to, things like increasingly resegregated neighborhoods and school districts are situations we historically have never controlled).
But let’s get back to America’s favorite criminal, shall we?
Who, according to a former producer, allegedly is recorded on tape calling a Black contestant on his old TV show “The Apprentice,” the N-word behind his back when deciding against crowning him the winner at the end of the first season. The tape still exists, but is protected behind a wall of legality at MGM Television, which has the rights to the show. Word is a lawsuit may be forthcoming to bring that tape to the light of day.
NCCU School of Law Prof. Irving Joyner says it better than I ever could:
Donald Trump does not hide his animosity, bias and disdain for African Americans and people of color. His present and past efforts to destroy established democratic institutions and principles are designed to enforce his personal and political prejudices against African Americans and those individuals of color who now enjoy the protections of present American laws and social convictions.
I couldn’t vote for someone like that under any circumstance!
Now don’t get me wrong. Old Joe Biden has also had his share of unfortunate racial utterances in the past too, and yes, he should be held accountable for them. But many of us chalk those up to Joe just being, at times, ignorant, which is a lot different than being perniciously hateful.
Biden, in fact, grew up with Black kids in segregated Wilmington, Delaware during the 1960’s.
I wrote about this in 2020 during Joe’s first presidential campaign against Trump. I had the chance to interview Richard “Mouse” Smith, then 72 and the Delaware State NAACP president. Smith, a former gang member back in the day, remembered Joe Biden as a young, tough, handsome Irish Catholic 19-year-old working class white boy who didn’t back down from a challenge, but also suffered from a severe stuttering problem, like Smith.
Biden took a job as the lifeguard at the local Black neighborhood swimming pool (which is now named after him), and eventually earned the respect of the people there, Smith said.
“Joe was one of us,” Smith told The Washington Post in July 2019. “We helped make him who he was.”
Now remember, years ago, Biden caught hell behind sponsoring the 1994 Crime Bill in the U.S. Senate, which many said was responsible for locking a lot of Black people up for longer prison sentences for felony drug offenses. True, but the bill was actually something that African-American leaders pleaded for at the time because of the pervasive violence of the crack cocaine gang wars on the streets of Black neighborhoods.
Even Jesse Jackson admitted he was afraid to go out at night.
Black mayors, politicians and leaders pleaded with Joe and Senate Democrats at the time to take the violent drug gangs off their streets. I know, I covered the story.
Now I’m not going to sit here and tell folks that Biden doesn’t have some weird racial wrinkles in his life, but again, he’s nowhere near the crud of Convicted Man.
And then of course, Joe did eventually spend eight good years serving with President Obama as vice president, and remains close with him to this day.
That should count for something.
A number of recent articles suggest that Blacks feel Pres. Biden hasn’t done enough for African-Americans in his nearly four years in office. They cite they just don’t see their lives getting any better or important issues being addressed.
Black males interviewed particularly seem to instead be impressed with Trump’s “success” as a millionaire (I’m still waiting to see cogent evidence of him actually being a billionaire), and his promises to build a better, more prosperous economy than Biden.
Hey Yo, my man, dig this…Trump, did, in fact, make some things better after he took office in 2017, NOT for you, but for his rich buddies-in-crime who hang out with him at Mar-a-lago Resort in Florida. He gave them big, fat tax breaks up the ying-yang. You honestly think he’s going to do the same for you, Homeboy? Especially now that he may be headed to prison, even for a short while?
Which reminds me... Trump once told a Black Republican audience that “the Blacks” (that’s what he lovingly calls us) feel an affinity towards him because we identify with how he’s been “persecuted” by the criminal justice system.
You’ll recall at the time, I shared with you part of an insightful Miami Herald editorial in answer to this nonsense, which said:
Here’s one key difference between Trump’s [criminal] situation and that of Black Americans, who have faced systemic racism: Trump is facing the consequences for his own alleged actions in the 91 criminal charges filed against him in four different cases, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
That was back in February. We’re now further down the Trump road in June 2024, with a felony conviction based on 34 charges, and sentencing coming next month.
Any Black person stupid enough to feel sorry for a greedy moron who was convicted for cooking the books to pay a porn star $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair just to win an election, deserves to have his or her “I Love Malcolm X” card revoked.
Donald Trump, even with his recent conviction, has been treated far, far better by the U.S. criminal justice system than any African-American could ever hope to be, primarily because he is both a former president of the United States, and a current candidate for the job.
And he still complains that he’s being persecuted, because he truly believes he's above the law.
Well I love what one fellow Black citizen, namely North Carolina Congresswoman Alma Adams (D) said regarding Trump’s conviction:
“The jurors have spoken. Justice prevailed over politics …and showed us that no one is above the law. I pray for our country and those charged with leading it.”
How about another well-known African-American citizen, Rev. Al Sharpton, regarding Trump’s felony conviction:
Donald Trump is a criminal…I’m reminded of Dr. King’s proverb that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
And lastly, NAACP President/CEO Derrick Johnson said:
As Black Americans have been denied basic human rights due to less offensive crimes, any attempt to advance Donald Trump’s nomination for Presidency would be a gross advancement of white supremacist policy.”
Trust me, Johnson wouldn’t have issued that statement if Trump did a hell of a lot for African-Americans during his first term.
So let’s clear the air here.
This business of some of my people, especially Gen Z young people, loving Donald Trump over Joe Biden because Joe hasn’t “done enough” for them is crazy talk. Trump is on record as hating the very issues young voters of all stripes care about the most - from Black Lives Matter to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in the Middle East.
Biden has gotten a lot of things done for Black folks, and now he and his Black VP, Kamala Harris, are flying around the country, telling Black audiences about them so that they know too (‘cause apparently they don’t).
I hope that Joe and Kamala are telling folks about the Biden Administration investing over $7 billion in funding for HBCUs (historically Black Colleges and Universities) - more than any other president; Biden’s economy adding 14.8 million jobs over the first three years of his term, again, more than any president in U.S. history, meaning that Black unemployment is currently 5.3%, after hitting 4.7% last year, the lowest in American history; wages having kept pace with inflation, which is now leveling off; and violent crime having fallen across the country by 11.8%.
Biden-Harris is also helping Black businesses secure the investment capital they need; has cut the number of Black children living in poverty; and has created 2.6 million jobs for Black workers.
“I ran for office to grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down,” Pres. Biden says. “That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
To be fair, when it comes to Democrats, particularly around presidential election time, Blacks folks get mighty tired of the okey-doke of the past, seeing little to vote for in the end. Biden and Kamala need to change that, and fast. And they’re trying.
So why hasn’t Joe and Kamala’s message about their accomplishments for African-Americans gotten out full force before now?
Well, it’s hard when you don’t always have Congress on your side ready to pass your policy proposals (people forget, the president can do some things, but on the big issues like voting rights and police reform, he needs to have both houses of Congress willing to work with him to get anything done. And so far, the Republican majority in the House now, and in the Senate last term, haven’t exactly been very cooperative with the president. In fact, they’ve worked very hard to make him look like a failure and a criminal).
And I’m seriously not worried about whatever pull South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott or Florida Congressman Byron Donalds might have with some Black folks. These two colored Republicans want to be Trump’s vice president so bad, it’s no wonder they don’t publicly wear the “sold out” signs they’ve borrowed from a cheap furniture store’s “going out-of-business” sale on their foreheads.
I honestly don’t see my community backing Convicted Man to any significant degree. I just don’t. Those of us who have good common sense (and that’s most of us, I sincerely believe) see Trump for what he is, even if no one else does.
“Under a Donald Trump administration, [the legal protections against federal and State governments, as well as private individuals to discriminate against racial minorities or to infringe upon the legal rights and protections which are enjoyed by other citizens] would be revoked, repealed and ignored, and this will have the effect of re-instituting racial slavery or a similar political status within this country,” says NCCU Law Prof. Irv Joyner.
I also agree with columnist Thomas Mills, whom I greatly respect. If Republicans and his MAGA supporters refuse to see that Trump was fairly tried and convicted in a court of law, then they’ll never recognize a fair election if he loses again this fall.
And Mills is also on point when he writes that Democrats need to make Republicans own up to the fact that they support a convicted felon for president - a man disloyal to our rule of law - and make sure that voters understand how ridiculous, unAmerican and dangerous that is.
These folks are already threatening violence against the judge, jury and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his legal team in Trump's case. Now be honest, if Black folk began doing that after losing a trial, what would everybody be saying, eh?
I just have to believe that most African-Americans who will be voting in November know that under a Trump regime, there will eventually be blood in the streets, NOT pie in the sky.
Or at least, I hope we know that, because a lot of that blood, most likely, will be ours!
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