All of these Black celebrities would do well to understand how unlikely it is that a sitting president is going to meet with entertainers on major policy decisions. Now, our current president and his administration will meet with you. He’s so desperate for Black friends that he won’t pass on the opportunity to use you and your naivete for “look at my African-American over here” optics, but that’s about it.
I remember when Steve Harvey met with Trump and Ben Carson to consult on urban development in the Black community even though neither he nor Carson had any real experience in urban development in the Black community—which obviously made the secretary of housing and urban development the perfect job for Trump’s favorite negro whisperer. Did anything come out of that meeting? Nope. Did Harvey end up regretting it? Yep. Was it the equivalent of a commander-in-chief asking George Lopez and Ray Romano to address the concerns of lower-income Latino and Italian Americans? Of course, it was.
Anyway, Tuesday wasn’t a good day for the “It Was a Good Day” rapper Ice Cube. There were no jacker-less red lights or triple-doubles on the basketball court, and if the Goodyear blimp read anything, it was, “Ice Cube got pimped.”
By now, many of you have heard that Cube was recently in contact with the Trump administration weeks ahead of the 2020 election, aka the old-crusty-white-men-pander-for-the-Black-vote-o-thon, according to tweets by both Cube and Trump 2020 senior adviser Katrina Pierson.
Apparently, he had input on Trump’s Platinum Plan for negroes who love platinum—which was conveniently announced a little over a month before the election.
Pierson announced Cube’s involvement in working with the administration on the plan via Twitter on Tuesday.
First of all, I really wish everyone would stop pretending this Platinum Plan is an actual plan and not just a list of campaign promises with YUGE numbers attached to make it seem legit. Once you realize that, you’ll understand that O’Shea Jackson “worked with” the administration to discuss “plans” for the betterment of Black people that Trump could’ve been working on since the beginning of his presidency when he inherited an economy on the rise instead of a current U.S. economy grappling with the effects of the ongoing global pandemic.
The good folks on Twitter were...well...unkind in their response to Pierson’s announcement.
Cube—who literally made a song called “Arrest the President” two years ago—responded to the criticism by tweeting, “Facts: I put out the CWBA (Contract With Black Americans). 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.”
He also responded to some of his critics.
After people remained unimpressed that the Trump administration tweaked its pandering plan a little as Cube claims, the “No Vaseline” rapper, who has probably done one too many Are We There Yet movies, put out a video explaining that “the system is fucked up” and he’s just trying to figure out why Black people “keep floundering at the bottom.”
Shit, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Cube is just doing the “chess not checkers” thing niggas kept saying Kanye was all about when he and Kim Kardashian were meeting with Trump even though I’m pretty sure that nigga can’t even play Connect Four. But all I can remember coming out of those meetings was an opportunity for Trump and Kim to take credit for prison reform neither of them was actually responsible for. The Root’s Michael Harriot did a brilliant job of breaking down that bullshit.
To be fair to Cube, the CWBA is a project he’s been working on for some time, and he has said he’s been meeting with all kinds of experts to strengthen it.
But Trump—the guy who wanted the Central Park 5 executed even after they were exonerated, thinks critical race theory and diversity training are the Devil’s work, wants to replace the 1619 Project with an even whiter version of American history than what’s currently being taught and hates all things Black Lives Matter—isn’t an expert on anything except racism, income tax avoidance and lying his pasty orange ass off.
Trump doesn’t care about helping Black people. He cares about looking like he does for clout.