[While I find comfort in Malcolm X’s observation to better have
a processed head than a processed mind, this election reminds us of
the often stated point that African Americans are not a monolith any
more than other ethnic or racial groups... ] [[link removed]]

THE BLACK VOTE AND MR. TRUMP  
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Gary Phillips
November 12, 2020
The Stansbury Forum
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_ While I find comfort in Malcolm X’s observation to better have a
processed head than a processed mind, this election reminds us of the
often stated point that African Americans are not a monolith any more
than other ethnic or racial groups... _

,

 

“Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest
ebb, the African American community stood up again for me.”
            — President-elect Joe Biden

If not for rapper and entrepreneur Ice Cube’s interactions with the
Trump administration about the president’s so-called Platinum Plan
for Black American economic advancement, a lot of people, including
me, would never have heard about the plan. Unveiled on the eve of the
first and raucous debate between Trump and now president-elect Biden,
at no point in that debate did Trump mention “his” plan.  Not
that any believe he had a hand in crafting its language.  Still, you
would think he might have tried to stay on message, but his own lack
of self-discipline was his undoing in that outing – and a factor
overall in his defeat.

To be fair, Cube was part of an effort called the “Contract With
Black America” (CWBA) that dropped last July.  It was, and still
is, intended in the words of Professor Darrick Hamilton, executive
director of the Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University outlined
in the preface:

“This Contract with Black America strikes at the heart of racism and
presents a blueprint to achieve racial economic justice. It was
written in the backdrop of the killing of George Floyd, which set off
a wave of protests not seen since the Civil Rights Era of the 1950’s
and ’60’s, and a global pandemic in which the Black mortality rate
is more than double the White rate and in which 45% (nearly half) of
Black-owned businesses closed.”

The CWBA was sent to both campaigns.  The Dems said they’d deal
with it after the election while the GOP apparently altered some of
the precepts in the Prez’s 2-page Platinum Plan to reflect the
aspirations laid out in the CWBA.  Though it wasn’t as if the CWBA
or the Plan was much discussed leading up to the election.  The
latter in particular wasn’t a sincere effort but rather a bid to try
and gin up votes for Trump among “the Blacks,” as he would say. 

“He calls it a ‘Platinum Plan,’ but it’s more like a Nickle
Plan offered by a zirconium president,” said Lawrence Brown, an
associate professor with the University of Wisconsin Population Health
Institute.

Be that as it may, even given his racialized appeal to law and order;
his studied ineptness handling the pandemic, let alone not
acknowledging its disproportionate impact on the Black and Latinix
communities and the  poor and working poor; subscribing to and
re-tweeting tinfoil hat conspiracy theories; and enacting policies
such as separating undocumented children from their parents, more
white women, a one percentile, and more black men, voted for Trump
this time around than in 2016.

In particular according to AP VoteCast, Trump won 8 percent of the
Black vote (some sources state twelve percent), up almost 2 percent
from before.  In a piece by Frank Newport on the Gallup website,
there was nineteen percent job approval for Trump among black men and
eleven percent among Black women.  Too, Biden’s support among
Black folk was less than Obama’s ninety percent, though better than
Hillary Clinton’s by some four percent more.

On the surface, this support among Black men (and Black women at 6
percent according to the AP) seems stupefying.  It’s not as if
Trump remained an unknown quantity as a politician these last four
years.  Is it as some have speculated the “strong man” has a
kind of appeal despite reality?  This military school graduate who
ducked Vietnam by claiming bone spurs yet has managed to craft an
image over the decades as someone who is tough, laconic in the way
Hollywood has presented the tough guy since before John Wayne strapped
on a six shooter as the Ringo Kid in _Stagecoach_?  A guy who can
cut through the bullshit and get the job done.  None of that
cerebral pontificating like Obama or lack of clarity like
“Dubya,” 

It is the case that prior to taking office, Trump had a favorable
image he didn’t cultivate per se but did exist among segments of
Blacks and Latinos.  His time on _The Apprentice_ reinvigorated an
impression of him among a wide swatch of viewers as a wealthy
corporate shark despite a string of bankruptcies, his goofball
university and failed real estate deals.  Bearing in mind that by
numerous accounts it took hours of taping that had to be culled and
edited together as if he were coherently analytical.  Such illusory
good will carried over when he finally decided to run for the highest
office.  But a degree of his attraction for people of color had to
diminish given his continued vilifying of the Central Park Five, a
quintet of then Black and Latino young men who were railroaded into
prison.  Their stories the subject of both a well-done documentary
and a fictionalized miniseries, _When They See Us_.  

Or when he glommed onto the birther movement.  At one-point Trump
called in to Fox saying his people were in Hawaii uncovering amazing
things about Obama.  The tease being he was about the bust the whole
thing open and prove Obama hadn’t been born in the U.S.  Of course
no such evidence was produced since it didn’t exist.  Yet his
positioning with the racist bunk artists of birtherism earned him
admiration among a base including those who now slavishly follow the
messages from the mysterious Q.  These cryptic communiques tout
Trump’s supposed battle against the Deep State and purport that
Democrats drink the blood of children – an old anti-Semitic trope
revived for the modern age.

Yet it certainly does seem as though Trump was able to accomplish a
Jedi mind trick when it came to how he was perceived in various
quarters despite reality; a reality star who defied such.  As is
pointed out in several articles, rappers have cited Trump in their
lyrics in positive ways over the years.  “Bigged Up” in phrases
like 2018’s Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar’s
“Determined”: from 2012, “Homies on the block can say whatever
they want/I don’t wanna be a dealer, I wanna be a Trump—Donald
that is.”  By the time he came to office, as Allison McCann noted
on her July 14, 2016 piece “Hip-Hop is Turning on Donald Trump” on
fivethirtyeight.com, “Rappers love Trump’s money but hate his
politics.”  For sure YG’s and Nipsey Hussle’s “FDT (Fuck
Donald Trump)” resonated, but Trump would nonetheless find allies in
the likes of Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne in this year’s bid to stay
in office.  Along with a muscular gentleman named Stephen Davis, who
goes by MAGA Hulk.  An African American who has waved his Trump flag
high and has spoken at rallies for him, as of course he’d be the
darling among these mostly white crowds as a “right thinking
negro,” in Beverly Hills and Huntington Beach.

While I find comfort in Malcolm X’s observation to better have a
processed head than a processed mind, this election reminds us of the
often stated point that African Americans are not a monolith any more
than other ethnic or racial groups on any given issue.  Several
factors contributed to Trump getting the numbers he did among Black
voters.  Not all Black people are down for Daca, choice, trans
rights or with Black Lives Matter.  Between a Justice Clarence
Thomas on the far right and Congressperson Ilhan Omar on the left,
there’s a lot in play socio-politically along that continuum.

Guess MAGA Hulk will wave his Trump flag on.  Because sadly, while
he’ll be out of office, Trump will no doubt continue to tweet his
verbal hand grenades from the sidelines.  It remains to be seen how
many will continue to rally around him or tire of his antics.

 

_Gary Phillips' Violent Spring published twenty-six years ago set in
the aftermath of the '92 civil unrest was recently named one of the
essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He was a story editor on FX's
Snowfall, about crack and the CIA set in 1980s South Central where he
grew up, and his latest novel is Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of
Harlem._

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