Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
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.
Is Candace Owens for real?
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.
David A. Love is a journalist and commentator who writes investigative stories and op-eds on a variety of issues, including politics, social justice, human rights, race, criminal justice and inequality. Love is also an instructor at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, where he trains students in a social justice journalism lab. In addition to his journalism career, Love has worked as an advocate and leader in the nonprofit sector, served as a legislative aide, and as a law clerk to two federal judges. He holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also completed the Joint Programme in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. His portfolio website is davidalove.com.
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