Former U.S. Rep. Peter King is shown at the Coral House on June 28, 2022, in Baldwin, New York. | Source: Michael M. Santiago / Getty
There’s arguably not a single myth in the world of contemporary politics that is more insulting, condescending and outright racist than the notion that Black people are stuck on a “Democratic plantation.” No one is putting whips to Black people’s backs and making us vote Democrat overwhelmingly. We don’t have big Black people meeting where we collectively decide what we’re going to do when we cast our ballots. Black people walk into those voting booths as free citizens and make decisions just like voters of every other demographic — and to imply otherwise is to reveal that you simply don’t have a very high opinion of Black people in the first place.
Former New York Rep. Peter King made an appearance on NewsMax to offer his Caucasian opinion on Barack Obama’s message to Black men regarding the upcoming presidential race. King took issue with Obama calling out “the brothers” for their perceived “lack of enthusiasm for Harris.”
Since King apparently knows so much about Black people that he’s familiar with our well-known love of white people being in our business (I’m honestly not sure if I’m laying the sarcasm on thick enough here) he decided to weigh in, saying that Obama’s call for Black men to support Harris “shows the plantation mentality that too many Democrats have.”
“If Donald Trump had gone to white voters and said, ‘You have to vote for me because you’re white and I’m white,’ I mean, it would be the ultimate racism,” King said.
Nah — that wouldn’t be the “ultimate racism” for Trump. I would argue that the former president has already crossed that line several times over.
Trump may have never come right out and said the words, “Vote for me because you’re white and I’m white,” but he is certainly appealing directly to white America when he echoes the themes of the white supremacist eugenics movement by insisting that Hispanic immigrants have murder and violence “in their genes.” Trump is very intentionally a white person talking to white people when he compares South American migrants to Hannibal Lecter and calls them “animals” who are “not human.” It’s not difficult to see what a white people whisperer Trump is purposefully being when he audibly wishes the U.S. received more white immigrants from “nice” European countries. When Trump is lying about Haitian migrants eating people’s pets in Ohio, and claiming they’re in the country illegally when he, by his own admission, knows they’re actually here legally, he’s not speaking to anyone but his fellow great replacement theorists who are desperately casting their votes to make white nationalism great again.
Actually, Trump has come right out and said explicitly that he plans to fight for white people. Despite the fact that America is a country that is more than 60% white and where white people dominate every important entity in Western society — from the corporate world to state and federal governments to all aspects of the justice system — Trump has vowed to fight against an “anti-white feeling in the country” that he declared “can’t be allowed.”
Yet King claimed Trump has made “real inroads” with the Black vote, and that he should be credited for “treating everyone equally,” and “giving everyone an opportunity.” In reality, Trump spearheaded the propaganda-reliant attack on critical race theory, issued an executive order banning diversity training in the workplace during his presidency, and has promised to end all DEI programs across America if he’s elected again. Trump has tried to appeal to Black voters by likening his felony convictions to the systemic racism Black people face in the justice system, and then he has turned around and told white voters that systemic racism against Black people doesn’t exist while promising policies to combat fictional racism against white people.
Trump isn’t offering “everyone an opportunity” when he makes it clear that Black people should be limited to designated “Black jobs,” which he claims are being stolen by illegal immigrants despite economic data indicating that is not the case. (Just like crime data does not indicate that undocumented migrants are causing significant rises in crime and election data does not indicate that they are voting in U.S. elections.)
Was Trump fighting for “everyone” when he exclusively aimed his 2020 election fraud lie at predominately Black and Latino voting districts, threatening to disenfranchise more Black and brown voters than any other racial group by a large margin?
This brings us back to the King’s “plantation mentality” nonsense, which is a sentiment shared by far too many white conservatives and Black contrarians alike. I wonder why it never appears to occur to these people that Black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat because the Republican party does such an abysmal job of not appearing to be gleefully racist.
Maybe Black people are simply voting for the party that doesn’t fight every reparations bill or piece of police reform legislation that makes its way through Congress. Maybe we’re just voting for the party that isn’t redistricting its congressional maps to reduce Black voting power. Maybe we’re voting against the party that is brazenly trying to keep us from voting. Maybe the party of people who are celebrating the end of affirmative action while calling all of our most accomplished Black officials “DEI hires” is simply not the party for us. Maybe we would rather vote for the party that is not actively trying to ban non-whitewashed Black History from every classroom in their states, and, instead, teach that Black people benefited from American slavery. Republicans are claiming we’re on a “Democratic plantation” while fiercely protecting the monuments, flags and legacy of the part of America that fought to protect actual slave plantations.
If Black people were truly on a “Democratic plantation,” we would show up in record numbers to vote blue in every single election, but we don’t, which is part of the reason for Obama’s message to Black men in the first place.
By the way, there are plenty of Black people who don’t agree with what Obama had to say (*raises hand*). Plenty of Black people responded to Obama’s remarks by accusing the ex-president of seeking to scapegoat Black men should Harris lose despite the fact that Black men will very likely vote for her more disproportionately than men of every other race. But that’s a conversation to be had within the Black community — which brings me to a final point…
Who TF is Peter King to call Black people slaves to Democrats?
Should we be surprised that we’re being connected to slavery by the man who once compared NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to Nazis “giving Nazi salutes?” Should we be shocked that the white man who blamed police brutality victim Eric Garner for his own death because he “had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese” is the same white man who believes we have a collective “plantation mentality?”
Maybe it’s King, Trump and the GOP that is guilty of having a white supremacist mentality. Perhaps that’s the real problem.
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