Maxine Waters warned you. Angela Rye warned you. Michele Obama warned you. Black woman after black woman warned that electing Donald Trump was a mistake, but people didn’t listen. Now that Trump has proven to be as incompetent at governing as he was at running a university or managing casinos in Atlantic City, political pundits left and right are acting as if this was unexpected. Numerous op-eds have been published asking did anyone know Trump would be so bad. RedState.com posting an article asking the question “ In Retrospect: Is There Anyone Who Could Have Predicted Where We Are Today?” Actually, black women did.
Just four percent of black women voted for Trump. 96 percent of black women knew he would be a disaster. And while I hate to say we told you so, I’m going to go ahead and say it. We told you so. Black women were right. Just in this week alone, Trump has:
- Compared the people who protested against the KKK with the actual KKK.
- Advocated keeping the confederate statues because it’s erasing history surprising black women everywhere who have heard about history books.
- Claimed that bullets dripped in pigs’ blood were used to stop Muslims. Yes, the President of the United States actually tweeted this false claim that pigs’ blood is kryptonite to Muslims.
- When asked if he would be visiting Charlottesville, he claimed he had the best winery there in one of the most inappropriate commercials ever (Side Note: He doesn’t have a winery in Charlottesville).
And while playing whose hands are bigger with the South Korean president, his merry band of evil minions have been busy gutted the Environmental Protection Agency, cutting protections for consumers, trying to dismantle affirmative action programs and even eliminating the requirement that employer-based insurance cover birth control.
So while the media seems to have a case of selective amnesia, I would like to acknowledge two black women of the many who not only warned the country that they were electing someone uniquely unqualified for the job but have the chutzpah to stand up to him and anyone else in this administration.
- While most journalists have let Trump talk about whatever he wanted to talk about whenever he wanted to talk, even covering the empty podium waiting for him to arrive (MSNBC I’m talking about you), Rev. Faith Green Timmons of the Bethel United Methodist Church stopped Trump in his tracks when he tried to use her pulpit to attack Hillary Clinton. Rev. Timmons said “Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint, not give a political speech,”. And Trump stopped talking demonstrating for anyone who didn’t know already when a black preacher tells you to shut up, you shut up.
- Then there was Congressmen Waters who wouldn’t let Treasure Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, get away with not answering her question at a congressional hearing. Mnuchin was doing his best recreation league basketball strategy by holding the ball and letting the clock run out, when Congressmen Waters asked him a question. But like with most black aunts, you can’t get away stalling. Maxine Waters repeatedly said “Reclaiming my time” to reset the clock on her question and a thousand memes were born.
As a black woman, I already know I have to work harder than my counterparts and I still make less than white men, white women and black men. That’s why black women connected to Hillary Clinton who worked her butt off only to be told that she didn’t smile enough while Trump just had to show up for his accolades.
We black women saw the red flags. They weren’t even flags really, they were red billboards. We warned our friends, family, coworkers, and anyone who would listen about Trump. We told you the birther stuff was how Trump really felt about the first black president. We told you not to ignore his history of housing discrimination. We told you not paying the small businesses who worked on his campaign was how he would treat the poor and middle class who supported him. We told you. And still millions of people rolled the dice and decided what have they got to lose. So now don’t pretend you weren’t warned. And don’t blame black women, we voted for Hillary.
