(Todd A. Smith)
Black people, do not let President Donald Trump’s commutation of ex-Gangster Disciple Larry Hoover’s federal sentence make you think that he is a friend of the Black community.
When President Trump released those ugly sneakers, some Black people fell for the okey doke.
And when Trump released his criminal mugshot, his felonious behavior endeared him to some in the Black community because, unfortunately, some people in our community believe that criminality embodies the Black experience.
Black people must examine legislation and policy when determining if a politician has our best interests at heart.
But for too many decades, many in the Black community looked at playing the saxophone on television or cozying up to rappers as indicators that a politician was an ally to our community.
Unfortunately, many Black people who overlook policy will celebrate this move, which doesn’t necessarily mean Hoover is coming home anytime soon, while ignoring their rights being slowly stripped away.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported, “The quest to free Chicago drug kingpin Larry Hoover included a stop at Mar-a-Lago.
“A New York lawyer advocating for Hoover said he spoke with President Donald Trump several months ago at the resort where he lives in Palm Beach, Florida. It was among a series of high-profile meetings between Hoover’s lawyers and Trump and his top aides since 2018.
“On Wednesday, their years-long advocacy paid off with Trump commuting Hoover’s federal sentence of life in prison on a drug conspiracy conviction.”
Hoover, who was ecstatic about his commutation, is currently housed in a supermax federal prison in Colorado.
It is currently unclear if he will be sent back to Illinois to serve his state prison sentence.
Initially, Trump was not knowledgeable about Hoover and expressed concern that he might return to a life of crime.
However, Hoover’s age and attempts to turn his life around probably swayed Trump’s decision.
The commander-in-chief also pardoned hip-hop superstar NBA YoungBoy (aka YoungBoy Never Broke Again), a native of Baton Rouge, La.
Although I love to see people exit the penitentiary walls, especially if they do something positive with the rest of their lives, those releases do nothing for the Black community.
The only reason many of us care about people like Hoover is because many of us are fascinated with the street lifestyle, including myself.
However, we should be more concerned about real-life issues, not the smoke and mirrors that Trump is so great at.
We cannot ignore how Trump and his Republican cohorts are rewriting American history to make it seem like Black people never endured and overcame racial oppression in this country, while casting White people as the real victims of racism.
We cannot ignore that a judge has cleared the way for Trump to deport 500,000 Black and Brown immigrants as a way to get tough on immigration, while simultaneously welcoming White South Africans to America and fast-tracking their citizenship.
Trump has falsely claimed genocide against White South African farmers, while mentioning nothing of the land that White farmers stole from Black South Africans during apartheid.
He even allegedly dissed former South African President Nelson Mandela back in the day, despite the brutal imprisonment that he lived through, just because he wanted Black people to be treated equally in their native land.
We must remember Trump’s dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
We must remember Trump calling for the death penalty for the Exonerated Five and never apologizing when they were found not guilty of brutally assaulting a White female jogger in New York’s Central Park in the late 1980s.
We must remember the racial discrimination lawsuits filed against Trump in the 1970s when he refused to rent apartments to Black tenants.
We must remember his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, confirming that his former boss made racist comments against Black people.
We must remember that his niece, Mary Trump, called her uncle a racist.
We must remember that Trump got rid of protections that shielded Black government employees from racial discrimination.
We must remember how non-diverse his Cabinet is.
We must remember to ignore MAGA lies that claim that Black unemployment was lower under Trump than under any other president.
Black unemployment was lower under former President Joe Biden than it was during Trump’s first term in the Oval Office.
We must ignore MAGA lies when they say Black people enjoyed more prosperity under Trump than any other president, because Black homeownership increased under former President Biden.
We must remember it was a Democratic Congress that approved those beloved stimulus checks, while Trump held up disbursement until he could place his signature on the checks.
We must remember that Biden also approved a stimulus check when he first took office in 2021.
More importantly, Black people must remember how often we deal with racism and racists and realize we know a racist when we see one.
Trump is stereotyping the Black community, and many are falling for it.
He thinks the Black community cares more about flash than a government that functions in their best interest.
The president thinks the Black community cares about gangsters and gangsta rappers and not real policy.
Black people want reparations, and all Trump is offering is rappers getting a release from prison.
Many in the Black community, including myself, salute Trump for his prison reform legislation during his first term.
But please do not become a prisoner to his patronizing presidency and the pomp and circumstance that do nothing for our plight.
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