Red or Blue. Democrat or Republican. It didn’t matter Sunday night.
Because in the end, both sides were guilty of using Black women’s pain as props.
As we stand nine months from Election Day, the current occupant of the White House has proven that he will use this country’s biggest sporting and cultural event to advertise his prejudicial and misogynistic philosophies while our nation’s most beloved game is being played.
“I’m free to hug my family. I’m free to start over. It’s the greatest day of my life. My heart is just bursting with gratitude. I want to thank President Donald John Trump.”
Those were the words of Alice Johnson, a Black woman that was serving life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense, from a 2018 video of the day she was released from prison.
If I was scheduled to live the rest of my life in prison I would thank whoever, no matter who it was, freed me, too. But yet, Trump found a way to use Johnson’s first moments of freedom as a way to align himself with Black voters.
During the first quarter of the Super Bowl, we found out what Trump’s reelection campaign dropped $10 million on, as the ad was scheduled to run early in the game when viewership was at its peak.
However, it was Kim Kardashian West that lobbied Trump for Johnson’s freedom. It was never some act of kindness on behalf of the President, the man that once publicly referred to a Black woman as a dog (Omarosa) in August of 2018.
“That ad was offensive AF. The “I freed a Negro” ad,” tweeted CNN Political Analyst and Former Representative from South Carolina, Bakari Sellers.
And as soon as Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s halftime show ended, Mike Bloomberg was more than happy to follow Trump’s lead and use Black women to his benefit.
“I just kept saying that the child that I gave birth to is no longer here. Lives are being lost every day. It is a national crisis. I heard Mike Bloomberg and he’s been in this fight for so long that he heard mother’s crying. So he started fighting. When I heard Mike was stepping into the ring, I thought, ‘now we have a dog in the fight.” said Calandrian Kemp, a Black woman, that lost her son George H. Kemp Jr. in 2013 to gun violence, in a campaign ad for Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Bloomberg.
“Mike is fighting for every child,” said Kemp.
This is the part where I remind you that when Bloomberg was the Mayor of New York City he was the face of the stop-and-frisk policy that allowed police to traumatize and unjustly go after black and brown men at will.
Whoever wins the “Black vote” usually occupies the Oval Office. And Sunday night, it was evident that Trump and Bloomberg will do whatever it takes to persuade Black voters. Even if it means falsely propping themselves upon the pain of Black women as a political ploy.
According to CNN exit polls, in the 2016 Presidential Election, 89% of Black people voted against Trump while 94% of Black women voted for Hillary Clinton.
And we know who the 53% of American voters chose to run the country.
Trump hasn’t proved his cautious electorate wrong as he’s done very little to help the plight of Black folks in this country. While Bloomberg, who aspires to take Trump’s job has confirmed that he has convenient amnesia, as his politics allowed the sons of the women he showcases to be abused by a system he championed on the third day of Black History Month.
At the conclusion of Sunday night, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in Super Bowl LIV. Trump congratulated the Chiefs in a now-deleted tweet that said they represented the “Great State of Kansas.”
Kansas City is in Missouri.
“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game, and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well. Our Country is PROUD OF YOU!”
This is what happens when a toddler is elected as the leader of the free world.
Go vote in November, and every election before, and after, that.
Because at minimum, we deserve a President that’s passed an elementary school Social Studies class.
