For the past 6 months I’ve struggled to come to terms with the results of the November 8th that put Trump and them in the White House. Even worse, I can’t come to terms with the fact that many of our own people chose death over life and help to put him in there. I’m not really certain what a Black Republican is, but 13% of African American men voted for Donald Trump in effort to elongate the oppression over the past 400 years and set back the Civil Rights Movement, so I do know that they exist.
Leading that charge for our eradication nightly is the crusty lipped bandit and CNN GOP political commentator Paris Dennard aka, the voice of Black people who wish they were white when assimilation is not enough. Nothing pains me more than to cut on CNN nightly and watch the ashy chapped lips of Dennard refute everything logical about being a Black man in America in effort to sway the opinion that Trump has our best interest at heart. He has night in and night out defended Trump’s agenda as it continues to oppress the marginalized and shown that he is just as delusional as the millions of Black men who checked off Trump on the ballot box. Dennard however is not new to being a coon in the Republican Party, and has a long history of fuckery to back it up.
From 2005 – 2009 Paris served under the Bush Administration as *drum roll please* The White House Director of Black Outreach where he was the liaison to the Black community at large. Yall remember Bush right? The President that flew OVER New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The one Kanye West, on national television, said “doesn’t like Black People”, which I understand you may now take with a grain of salt since Kanye got kicked out of the family cookout. Bush was as good to Black people as unseasoned baked fried chicken, and Dennard was very much one of the chefs. Much like current Director Omorosa, Paris, during that era deflected, lied, conjured, and spread alternative facts about how much the GOP was doing for Black America. Evident in how many Black and brown folk were hurt economically during the Bush administration, you would think it would pull Paris from that “sunken place”, but instead he opened the door to suck more negroes in and 8 years later, we have Trump.
My final straw with Dennard occurred a few weeks ago when he proclaimed loud and proud that Trump was in fact doing more for HBCU’s than President Obama. Now let’s be clear, Obama didn’t do much on the HBCU front so I’m not even going to go there. However, when you look at the fact that Trump has cut 3.9 billion in Pell Grant funding intersected with major cuts to HUD; this could easily be the final days of HBCU’s. He got into a spat with Angela Rye and Don Lemon over the issue when they made the valid point of Black folk having to choose to shelter and feed their kids over sending them to HBCU’s.
He insisted that Lemon was “putting down” HBCU’s by saying housing was more important than college. He also insisted that Trump signing the order in front of all those HBCU President’s was a step toward progress, as if every president prior hadn’t signed that same order. So we are all clear, Black students and HBCU’s survive on Pell funding. IDGAF what Trump signed in front of those HBCU presidents, this type of funding cut could destroy a pillar and tradition over 150 years in the Black community. My hatred for him grew deeper as he defended O’Reilly and Spicer using the “why does everything have to be about race line”.
Dennard represents the worst part of assimilation. Black folk who think that white people are looking past the color of their skin, don’t believe in the “race card”, think that white folk just need a chance “to grow”. Following the long line of Blacks in the sunken place like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson, Dennard is used as a voice of the Black people by white people who want to be validated in their lackluster efforts, rather than be called out for their bullshit. He is the face of “look, see how one of you Negros made it by being respectable” rather than fighting for our existence and culture to be preserved as we are.
So from one Black voice in the community to another, fuck you Paris Dennard. Fuck the elitist, respectable Negro politics for which you have built your entire facade of a career on. People like you are why we have to stay out in these streets fighting for our rights while you trying to prove that we have already overcome. I’m tired of Black pundits having to battle you night in and night out.
It’s time for you catch fade.
George M Johnson is a black queer journalist and activist. He has written for Ebony, TheGrio, JET, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Black Youth Project and several HIV publications.