Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Blackface? Trump's Fault


Democratic Virginia Governor Ralph Northam did everything but sing “Mammy” during a recent press conference in which he was apparently, if unsuccessfully, trying to apologize for being in a racially offensive picture in a school year book decades ago. (Before he denied being in that same picture, which showed a man in blackface and another in a Klu Klux Klan outfit). This prompted Today Show co-host Craig Melvin to ask a panel of NBC News commentators why blackface is “all of a sudden front and center in America again.” Since we all know that only Republicans can be racist, Eddie Glaude Jr., a Princeton University professor, answered: “I think it has something to do with what Donald Trump has unleashed. It has something to do with the reservoir that’s underneath our politics that can always be activated at any moment. So it’s not like it’s something new has happened. It’s always underneath. It’s the undertow.” Say what?! A more honest answer would have been: “I think it has something to do with Northam being an idiot.”
 So, the talking heads think it’s President Trump’s fault that Northam, who also admitted that he dressed in blackface to moonwalk as Michael Jackson at a dance contest in 1984*, may have appeared in a racist photo 35 years ago? They do, indeed! At least according to MSNBC political analyst Zerlina Maxwell, who said: “You know, young children of color are dealing with kids saying, ‘Build the wall.’ Donald Trump has normalized this overt display of racism.” 
How the hell is saying “Build the wall” overtly racist? Building the wall isn’t racist. And, again, what the hell does this have to do with Northam’s actions three-and-a-half decades ago?
It is astounding how the media blames anything and everything on Trump, who, by-the-way, called Northam’s actions “unforgivable.” The list of things the Media-Entertainment Complex blames Trump for is now longer than the list of excuses Hillary Clinton uses to rationalize her loss to him in 2016.
The likes of CNN and MSNBC blame President Trump for Russian collusion, global warming, racism, sexism/misogyny, incivility, floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, chronic wasting disease, gun violence, STDs, World War I, ableism, the shrinking Polar Ice Cap, substandard NFL officiating, air pollution, Lupus, the slow pace of play in Major League Baseball, Macedonian content farms, erectile disfunction, species loss, the shifting magnetic pole, the opioid epidemic, bed bugs, rapid onset gender dysphoria, sun spots, the lack of sun spots, overpopulation, The Happy Time Murders, Emerald Ash-Borers, the heartbreak of psoriasis, Polar Vortexes, greenhouse gas emissions, and Cedar Apple Rust.
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*During which he reportedly stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. That doesn’t do much to support the hotel chain’s “Stay Smart” advertising campaign. “Hey, good-looking blackface!” “Thanks, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. And, I’m thinking of running for office.”



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