Why Did Trump Invite All Those Black People To The White House?

A perspective you’ll find interesting

A few days after “King” Trump began his new reign in America, he decided to cancel several national holidays or months of celebration. Those included MLK Day, Women’s Day, Black History Month, Pride Month, Juneteenth, and others. As a Black woman, it stung me to realize that these days that celebrated a part of my identity were simply removed from the calendar by the thug-in-chief and his acolytes.

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As I looked at his immediate entourage and saw few Black faces in his cabinet, I again realized how lonely the next four years were going to be. There is no senior-ranking Black woman in Trump’s cabinet, and it isn’t because no such profile exists. Trump has decided to punish all Black women for overwhelmingly voting for Kamala Harris.

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So why, after canceling Black History Month, did Trump decide to invite Black people to the White House? Well, because for him, it’s all about the optics. You see, he knows that it shows he doesn’t have many Black people in his cabinet. It’s beginning to look bad for him, so to keep the support of the Black men who voted for him, he had to give them something. That is what yesterday was all about: Him pretending to "like", Black people.

But I’m not buying that, and neither should you. This is the same man who refused to rent his apartments to Black people, the same man who took out a whole page ad in a newspaper to demand the death penalty for 5 Black men who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in Central Park in the 80s. The man hasn’t changed; he is a racist, but to hide that, he’ll do whatever it takes, including inviting a bunch of Black people to the White House and pretending to be their friend.

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The reality though is that if he valued Black people, he wouldn’t be dismantling the Civil Rights that our ancestors fought and died for, he wouldn’t be canceling holidays like MLK or Juneteenth that celebrate symbolic moments in our history. He wouldn’t be calling for an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that give opportunities to Black and brown people.

Donald Trump invited those Black people to the White House for a photo op and some sound bytes. Watch the White House replay those images over and over to justify that Trump isn’t racist. They’ll double down on sharing those messages when we begin to realize that many of the programs and benefits that are being cut by DOGE will harm a significant amount of Black people. Trump will then pull out his Trump card - the footage of this reunion, to say he isn’t racist.

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Everything this White House does is scripted, every message is calculated and intentional, and every act serves a purpose. The Black people fest at the White House at the tail end of a Black History Month Trump canceled but has now re-embraced serves a specific purpose. Don’t forget that.

And I’m sure you’ll ask me why Black people even went to such an event. Didn’t they realize they were puns? The answer is white supremacy. The mistake we make is to assume that white supremacy is an agenda that only white people promote and enforce. It isn’t. White supremacy is the belief that whiteness is superior. There are many Black and brown people who have been brainwashed over time to believe this. They internalize white supremacy and do its bidding to the detriment of their interests. I don’t deny that some of the people in the room genuinely love Trump, but it’s important to keep in mind that some of them have a huge amount of self-loathing and wish they were white.

Rapper Kodak Black at the White House

I think that over time Black people will realize that Trump doesn’t give a fuck about them. Now, it’s all champagne and canapés at the White House and people find him cool. Over the next months and years, however, they’ll find out that in an administration that venerates and adulates whiteness, there is no space for anything else but that.

Thank you for reading my perspective.

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