Reflections on Oprah for president | Think Piece

KNOCK. IT. OFF. You know good and well that #Oprah2020 is a terrible idea that must not be given any more life.

And no, I am not about to launch into a personal attack on Oprah. Some of y’all get too excited about attacking Black women. Comin’ for Oprah’s neck like she announced she was running.

She hasn’t said she wants to run – which is the first reason you outta knock it off. Running for president is not the same as giving a toast or showing someone your old school running man. We don’t just start clapping and chanting people’s names until they resignedly run for President.

I know I don’t have to remind you that electoral politics have real effects on our real lives. For those of us already living the American Nightmare, the past year under an entertainment mogul has us eager to cancel this series by any means necessary.

Are you not sufficiently traumatized by what happens when a celebrity-slash-entertainer-slash-business tycoon with no experience in politics and/or grassroots organizing gets a hold of the reins of power that is the US presidency?

Do you find what we are dealing with now remotely satisfying? Yes, many assume Oprah likely wouldn’t be a worse President than 45, but is he and his administration really the new standard? That idea implies that we’ll take you as long as you might be better than 45?

A reporter recently described the White House as “a bunch of monkeys throwing excrement at each other in cage.” Is the standard of governance that folks are using to say, “She would do better”?

White folks are constantly doing their level best to keep Black folks from getting into positions of real leadership in their systems until it all starts to fall apart. Then, they shove us Black people to the front of the line to clean up their mess. And for some godforsaken reason, we are always the ones up front championing the idea that we, especially Black women, should carry the burden of white folks’ misdeeds and mistakes.

Show‘em how it’s done with a smile and maybe an eloquent speech or at least a morally uplifting catch phrase, all while we slay with our good looks and fabulous fashion.  We just gotta show how magical we are by getting these imperialistic exploitative systems –  systems rooted in and fed by our sorrow, tears, and blood –  to work; even when it is clear that we are the ones who are the most harmed by these very systems we save.