“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black,
examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.
CHICAGO — Eight years ago, near the end of her husband’s two terms in office, Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, “When they go low, we go high.”
This week in Chicago, Michelle and Barack came back home and said f** that s***. Just kidding. The Obamas did not abandon their pledge to stay high, but they didn’t hold back either. As Lil Jon sang during the Convention, “Turn Down for What.”
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“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” Michelle Obama told the convention. While she was clearly reflecting on her personal experience dealing with a loudmouth fake billionaire who tried to deny the legitimacy of her husband’s presidency, she was also sharing the story of millions of Black people who had been alienated by Trump’s divisive politics.
Trump’s “limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black,” she said. It was a reminder that she and her husband followed the rules, went to school, worked hard, and succeeded by doing everything America told them to do without the benefit of white privilege or a $400 million inheritance from a rich parent, as Trump had.
It was also a contrast between Trump and Kamala Harris. “She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth,” Michelle Obama said.
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Then she went for the kill. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he is currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?”
In a speech that only mentioned Trump once by name, it was clear from the beginning to the end that he was her target. “If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance,” she said, referencing Trump’s six bankruptcies and disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don’t get to change the rules so we always win,” she said, referencing Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top,” she said, referencing Trump’s infamous ride on a golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015.
Just in case you missed the escalator reference, President Obama brought it back in his speech following his wife. “This is a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” he said, casually explaining how Donald Trump “sees power as nothing more than a means to his ends.” It was an indictment of an annoyingly wealthy man who claims to want to represent the 330 million people in America but spends nearly all his time complaining about his own “gripes and grievances.”
Then Obama went in for his own kill, assailing Trump for his “childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories and weird obsession with crowd size,” as the former president brought his hands together like an accordion shrinking to adjust Donald Trumps’ comfort level. “It just goes on and on,” Obama said.
Yes, she can.
Barack Obama
The crowd erupted.
I’ve been going to Democratic Conventions since the Atlanta Convention in 1988, and I’ve never seen this level of unmitigated excitement. Even at the Denver Convention in 2008, when Barack Obama was nominated, the aura of hope was tempered by a pervasive sense of uncertainty that lingered in the air as we all wondered if America would really elect a Black president.
“Yes, she can,” President Obama said Tuesday night. But the Obamas also reminded us that while Kamala has the momentum, we still have serious work to do and expect a close election. Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist allowing myself a moment to dream when Michelle Obama said that “hope is making a comeback,” I immediately turned to watch Justin Pearson of the “Tennessee Three.” Pearson, a state representative who was famously booted out of office by Republicans only to be defiantly re-appointed and re-elected, raised his fist in the air in agreement and yelled.
As Lil Jon would say, “Yeah!”
Keith Boykin is a New York Times–bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.
The post Turn Down for What: The Obamas Unplugged In Chicago appeared first on Word In Black.
