“Shut up and dribble” is what Fox host Laura Ingraham told Lebron James, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, for talking politics during an interview. Shockingly, she doesn’t have the same advice for Kansas City Chief kicker Harrison Butker who created a conservative Christian political action committee and gave a misogynist commencement speech where he also denounced abortion rights, DEI, and Pride month.
For some reason, it’s perfectly fine for Butker to campaign with Senator Josh Hawley. Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers, whom RFK Jr. considered a possible running mate, can spout conspiratorial nonsense on Pat MaCafee’s show on ESPN. None of this is “identity politics” or too political. Oddly, this only applies when people of color dare speak out. 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick lost his career because he kneeled to protest cops shooting and killing unarmed Black people. Current 49ers defensive star Nick Bosa, however, can interrupt a live interview to promote a MAGA hat without any earth-shattering outrage.
In politics, Kamala Harris, the first Black Indian American woman to run for President, was allegedly too woke, too leftist, and too much into identity politics according to establishment pundits. They say this is what caused her to lose. However, these people never mention the obvious “identity politics” of Donald Trump and MAGA because it’s so rooted and centered in Whiteness, which is allowed to exist under anodyne codewords such as “the average worker,” “the suburban mom,” “the Rust Belt,” and “the heartland.”
Trump is the same racist who accused Harris of “turning Black” and called her a “low IQ” individual. His surrogates compared her to a prostitute and promoted neo-Nazi conspiracies about Black people and immigrants of color. Just this week Trump promised reparations for white people and his entire cabinet is a DEI program for mediocre whites who assault women. Again, none of this warrants any discussion in corporate media about the role of racism and misogyny in the 2024 election.
Well, this isn’t corporate media. This is The Left Hook. Sports journalist Jemele Hill, who was suspended from ESPN for daring to talk about politics as a Black woman, joins me to unpack how Black people and communities of color understood how racism and Trump’s “identity politics” played a major role in this election cycle.
Grab a chai and give us a listen.
Share this post