Ice Cube has set the world on fire again.
The 51-year-old entertainer-businessman-activist has aggressively pushed for a real Contract With Black America (CWBA) over the last few months.
Knowing that in weeks a President will be voted on, O’Shea Jackson has been fed up with the lack of support from either side with terms for how to ameliorate the State and Federally-sanctioned problems that exist within the Afrikan community.
However, Ice Cube has been visiting MAGA country lately to develop the “Platinum Plan” for Black America, and that is making his supporters feel uncomfortable.
Shoutout to @icecube for his willingness to step up and work with @realDonaldTrump Administration to help develop the #PlatinumPlan
ICYMI: https://t.co/V0qOAp0lwR
Leaders gonna lead, haters gonna hate. Thank you for leading! ✊🏾
— Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) October 13, 2020
Leverage Politics
In negotiation, leverage is the power that one side of negotiation has to influence the other side to move closer to their negotiating position.
In politics, a party’s leverage is based on its ability to award benefits or impose costs on the other side.
Cube has been very vocal about his distrust of the Democrats who Black America has been historically loyal to since JFK and to no overall economic or socio-political avail.
Ice Cube understands that if history tells the tale, the Democrats believe that Black America was always in their pocket; with or without Kamala Harris as the VP nominee.
Facts: I put out the CWBA. Both parties contacted me. Dems said we’ll address the CWBA after the election. Trump campaign made some adjustments to their plan after talking to us about the CWBA.
— Ice Cube (@icecube) October 14, 2020
On Sunday, he posted a video to Twitter titled “DON’T KILL THE MESSENGER.”
“I just know one of them is gonna win … I don’t know if can really matter to us, we gotta just push whoever’s in there, because ain’t nobody really solved our problems,” he says, addressing the black community. “People say we can’t take another four years of this — black people, s–t, we can take anything.”
“Joe Biden, the Democrats, I believe they owe us,” Cube adds. “Will they do right by us at the end of the day — who knows?”
Cube also clarified his lack of partisan affiliation and preference for whoever will deliver for Black America first.
DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER #CWBA #ContractWithBlackAmerica pic.twitter.com/8NqthXp268
— Ice Cube (@icecube) October 11, 2020
According to his reps that talked to Rolling Stone, Ice Cube offered to meet with both the Trump and Biden campaigns in recent weeks to discuss an “agenda for Black Americans” and support for his Contract With Black America (CWBA), which “strikes at the heart of racism and presents a blueprint to achieve racial economic justice.”
“Both parties contacted me,” Cube explained on Twitter. “Dems said we’ll address the CWBA after the election. Trump campaign made some adjustments to their plan after talking to us about the CWBA.”
Tale of the Tape
So when you line up a plan for a plan, which lines up best for Black America when looking at the two leading corporatized parties?
According to the Contract With Black America:
“The problems facing America are too deep and wide to simply reform one area or another,” the contract said. “Long-lasting solutions demand a comprehensive thorough ‘rethink’ of America so that each new approach in each area supports the success of the others.
This Contract with Black America will provide conceptual approaches in several areas.” The contract goes on to detail 13 different areas of improvement, including bank lending, prison reform, police reform, and the elimination of all confederate monuments.
Trump’s “Platinum Plan” on the surface sounds like a Cash Money “bling-bling” era pander much title.
The plan promises to “increase access to capital in black communities by almost $500 billion” by creating 500,000 black-owned businesses and 3 million new jobs for the black community, as well as “access to better education and job training.”
The Platinum Plan also pledges to strengthen Trump’s immigration and policing policies to protect jobs and communities.
Joe Biden has the “LIFT EVERY VOICE: THE BIDEN PLAN FOR BLACK AMERICA” platform.
James Weldon Johnson pander much?
The plan states:
“Joe Biden knows that African Americans can never have a fair shot at the American Dream so long as entrenched disparities are allowed to quietly chip away at the opportunity. He is running for President to rebuild our economy in a way that finally brings everyone along—and that starts by rooting out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, our institutions, and our hearts.”
The Biden Plan for Black America promises to advance the economic mobility of African Americans and close the racial wealth and income gaps. Expand access to high-quality education and tackle racial inequity in our education system. Make far-reaching investments in ending health disparities by race. Strengthen America’s commitment to justice. Make the right to vote and the right to equal protection real for African Americans and address environmental justice.
Also, Biden-Harris offer a twelve-point agenda to “Empower Black Men”.
In the era of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests for social justice and against police brutality, it seems the chic wave of “addressing” perceived concerns of Black voters has arrived?
The Biggest Question Surrounding Ice Cube
What Afrikans want to know: If Ice Cube is selling out the community for a better deal with the perceived opposition?
https://twitter.com/JoeBidenForLife/status/1316479871066017793?s=20
Trumpism has taken over the Republican Party so what Ice Cube fails to remember in his negotiating is that the cult of personality that is Trump has been nothing but toxic for Black America.
“Look at my African-American!”
“Get that son-of-a-bitch off the field!”
Remember that?
The majority of Black America that Ice Cube purports to represent will not provide a pass for Trump’s unforgivable sins.
I don’t care what Ice Cube says. Trump never apologized to the Central Park 5. He never apologized to Pres. Obama for birtherism. He never apologized to Black NFL players. He never apologized to Black countries he called s-holes. He never apologized for Black lives lost to Covid. pic.twitter.com/UsS10F3jat
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) October 15, 2020
CNN political commentator Keith Boykin summed it up perfectly:
“I don’t care what Ice Cube says. Trump never apologized to the Central Park 5. He never apologized to Pres. Obama for birtherism. He never apologized to Black NFL players. He never apologized to Black countries he called s-holes. He never apologized for Black lives lost to COVID.”
Facts.
Also, why does Donald Trump and his team only feel comfortable talking to Black celebrities and not the actual community organizers and politicos who might not be pop culturally relevant but actually have their pulse on the problems facing the downtrodden and overall state of Black America?
In addition, why is Ice Cube only sending his Contract appeal to the two major corporatists parties? Is this not a silent admission that he only sees red and blue as an option when thinking about Black America’s future?
Remember Cube’s song, “Arrest the President”.
The music video was potent with clips of President Trump’s border wall, his newfound “friendship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
“Did you know the new white was orange?” says Cube in a lyric of the song.
Ice Cube is attempting to convince Black America that because both sides of the political aisle have done nothing thus far, it is up to him to use his community currency to sway immediate action on our behalf.
Leverage politics.
But what Ice Cube gambles on is leverage with our community he wishes to deliver to either candidate. Our community that lambasted Kanye West, Steve Harvey, and Jim Brown for meeting with Trump for the same reasons.
The only question Ice Cube must consider now is with his counter-political brand on the line, was it worth it?
