Systems of
racial oppression and colonization require
active participation from members of the
oppressed group. This is certainly the case
for Black people who conspire with white
supremacy to bring us down. From the days of
Malcolm X’s "The
House Negro and the Field Negro" speech to Black
South Africans who helped the Afrikaner rulers
under apartheid, we have known those in our
midst who would sell out Black people for a
plate of grits and salt pork. Or chicken
wings. Enter the Black MAGAs.
As the American conservative
movement has morphed from racist dog whistles
and white-grievance politics to full-blown
fascism and white nationalism, Black MAGAs
have enlisted as soldiers in the war against
civil rights, voting rights, liberal democracy
and racial justice. Unable to achieve their
unpopular and toxic policies through the
ballot box, MAGA intends to bring about their
goals through white nationalist minority rule.
And Black MAGAs are eager to
oblige.
Lacking principles, these Black
white nationalists say and do anything to
please Trump, Trumpism and the white
supremacist base. Never speaking ill of white
folks, Black MAGAs will blame the Black
community for anything and everything, never
stand up for Black people, never help us and
always throw us under the bus. They lack
self-respect and scruples. However, they do
collect a paycheck, which they will enjoy
until such time as they are rendered useless
and their services are no longer
needed.
Perhaps the
most useful of the Black MAGAs is Clarence
Thomas — whose wife Ginni is an insurrectionist and whose
benefactor Harlan Crow is a Hitler
fan who
bankrolls the MAGAtization of the Supreme
Court and other
causes that undermine Black people — is the
most prominent example of Black MAGAs. Early
on, Anita Hill tried to warn us about
Clarence, who is lacking and character and
whose judicial opinions against Black people
are almost cartoonishly cruel. After all,
Thomas wanted to have a man executed before
allowing him a DNA test. In
another case, the justice
thought it was fine for a corrupt, racist
Mississippi prosecutor to try a Black man for
murder six times and strike all the Black
prospective jurors in his crusade to have the
man executed.
Thomas — the man who wants you
to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even
while his bootstraps were purchased by a
wealthy white man named Harlan Crow — is not
alone.
In Kentucky,
Black attorney general Daniel Cameron — who
did a Black woman named Breonna
Taylor wrong —
wants to become his state’s next governor.
Cameron, who did everything in his power to
derail his own investigation into the
police killing of Taylor, was so sneaky
and dishonest about the
grand jury proceedings that three of the grand
jurors filed
a petition to have him impeached.
Cameron, who
thanked Trump for backing him and helping him
win the GOP
nomination for Kentucky governor, praised the
former president by saying “Let me just say
the Trump culture of winning is alive and well
in Kentucky.”
Senator Tim
Scott of South
Carolina, who claimed “America is not a racist
country” and “woke supremacy” is just
as bad as white supremacy, is running for
president. And while the Black Republican may
appear to be "the
exact opposite of Trump",
Scott has
defended Trump and the Trump agenda. Scott
would not blame Trump specifically for the
Jan. 6 insurrection, and he killed the George
Floyd Justice in Policing Act after
walking away from talks with Sen. Cory Booker
and Rep. Karen Bass by blaming it all on
Democrats wanting to “defund the police.”
In Michigan,
Kristina Karamo has
become the first Black woman to chair the state
Republican Party. The election
denier and Trump
loyalist who accused Democrats of having a
“satanic agenda” lost her bid for Michigan
secretary of state to the Democratic opponent.
Karamo is a conspiracy
theorist who
believes “globalists” like the World Economic
Forum, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and
President Joe Biden are using the COVD-19
pandemic to establish one world government.
And in North
Carolina, the Black MAGA Lt. Gov. Mark
Robinson, who is running for governor, is
something to behold and is over the top even
by Black MAGA standards. Robinson attacked the civil
rights movement of the
1960s by saying “so many freedoms were lost
during the civil rights movement” and claimed
Black people owe “reverse reparations” for
slavery.
The
gubernatorial candidate also claimed the
movement was designed to “subvert capitalism”
and used “to subvert free choice and where you
go to school and things like that.” Robinson
also mocked
school shooting victims, supported
shooting protesters, called LGBTQ+
people “filth”
and falsely claimed that “clinics” were
performing gender-affirming surgery on
5-year-old children.
Candace Owens
is much the same. The Black conservative
activist and political commentator told Tucker
Carlson that “Black Americans are the most
murderous group in America by rate,”
and downplayed the George Floyd and Kyle
Rittenhouse cases as examples of injustice.
Owens also said racism
is over because
“I’ve never been a slave in this country.” And
she wore a “White Lives Matter”
T-shirt with
Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week last year,
and defended Ye for saying he would “go death
con 3 on Jewish people.”
Owens has defended
Hitler and white nationalism, saying “If
Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and
have things run well — OK, fine. The problem
is he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted
to globalize. He wanted everybody to be
German.”
The racist
whip-cracking Tennessee General Assembly
passed a resolution honoring
Owens for moving to their state. The
resolution stated that “Ms. Owens will serve
as another robust voice against socialism and
criminality as a Tennessean” and “add to our
already burgeoning pool of creative talent.”
And for
honorable mention, we cannot forget Brown
MAGAs such as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki
Haley, who called
the confederate flag a symbol of “service,
sacrifice and heritage.” And finally, we
have Vivek
Ramaswamy, the
Indian-American Trump 2.0 who
whitesplained Black history to Don
Lemon — claiming the Civil War was fought so
that Black people could own guns — and gave $10,000
to the killer of Jordan Neely.
As the colorized and melanated
enablers of fascism, today’s Black MAGAs are
truly dangerous jokes. At any other time, we
would ridicule and laugh at them for uttering
what they could not possibly believe. Still,
we should. Yet, at a time when white
nationalism is weaponizing the Black MAGAs and
their political rhetoric as part of an effort
to undo us all — through disinformation, toxic
policy and violence — this is serious
business.
This
commentary is also posted on The
Grio.
