By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Donald Trump’s claim that “beautiful Black women” were begging him to come to Chicago was not flattery. It was a lie that weaponized race and gender to mask a long record of cruelty and contempt. It was a performance designed to seduce the uninformed and comfort those willing to excuse his open assault on the people he pretends to praise.
For any Black person, minority, or woman defending this, the problem is not confusion. It is complicity. To defend this man after what he has done and continues to do is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the oppressor. Those who call themselves Foundational Black Americans yet pledge loyalty to him are not champions of their people. They are what Malcolm X warned about, the House Negroes who mistake proximity to power for freedom. And that betrayal was cemented the day the National Association of Black Journalists gave Trump a stage, handing him a microphone he used to spread contempt and racism. Trump’s remarks come as Black women bear the brunt of his administration’s purge of the federal workforce and rollback of civil rights protections. Reports show that roughly 12 percent of the federal workforce is made up of Black women, nearly double their share of the national labor force. Yet under Trump, hundreds of thousands have been pushed out of jobs. “Black women are not just workers or numbers on a spreadsheet. We are the backbones of our families, our communities, and this country,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley. “Nearly 70% of Black women are the primary breadwinners in their households. When we lose work, it reverberates far beyond our own families. Economists estimate that just 2% of Black women being fired this year has cost our economy $37 billion in GDP spending.”
This is not mismanagement. It is targeted harm. Trump’s second term has been defined by mass firings, the dismantling of diversity programs, and public humiliation of Black officials. The Center for American Progress called his policy agenda a bait and switch, concluding that “these policies have the deliberate effect of erasing the Black middle class and making it unattainable for any future generation.” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of several prominent Black women targeted by Trump, has faced indictments and threats from the administration after leading successful cases against his business empire. “We conducted a two-year investigation based on the facts and evidence, not politics,” James said, calling the charges against her “baseless.” Her experience mirrors that of Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, and Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought election interference charges against Trump. Each woman rose to her position through merit, only to be met with retaliation and slander. Trump has called James “scum” and used language reminiscent of racial slurs to describe her. He has accused Willis of being “racist” and “out to get Trump.”
The Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division warned that Trump’s second term poses a significant risk to women’s rights. Executive Director Macarena Sáez said, “If we listen to what he says, we should be concerned about the significant impact on women’s rights his administration could have.” Meanwhile, women like Bishop Leah D. Daughtry and Reverend Dr. Brianna K. Parker have sounded alarms about the moral cost of his policies. “We are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in America,” Daughtry has said. “We drive trillions in consumer spending, and when Black women thrive, families and communities thrive. This is a national emergency. America cannot afford to sideline the very women who have always sustained its growth.” Parker added, “Soaring unemployment among Black women is not a footnote. It’s a catastrophic moral failure at the highest levels of the American system.”
Even Black officials inside the government have not been spared. “We had targets on our backs, no doubt about it, by virtue of the color of our skin,” said Gwynne A. Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, after being removed by Trump. “But I did not get this job because of D.E.I. I got it because of my experience.” Trump’s so-called admiration for “beautiful Black women” is nothing more than the cover story for an agenda that systematically undermines them. When he praises them, it is not respect. It is deceit. And when some of our own defend him, it is not loyalty. It is surrender. “Trump wants to keep his knee on the neck of our economy and rob Black families of our dignity, our livelihood, and our futures, but not on our watch,” Pressley said.
