Chrisette Michele: How The Black Community Failed You & You Failed Us

The Inauguration last Friday, was a sight to see from the empty stands to President Trump’s extremely shady acceptance speech. Unfortunately, leading up to the inauguration was filled with criticism and backlash of artists who decided to perform. The heat especially came when those within the black community decided to sing for President Trump. One who received the most backlash was Chrisette Michele. When the announcement came that she would be singing for Trump, black twitter went off. Black twitter which is made up of random individuals in the black community is known to poke fun at a situation and make light of a problem, but it also can be a harsh unforgiving place if you upset enough individuals. 

It was an almost silent but understood stance that the black community was not going to support trump nor let anyone within it perform for him. This stance was seen throughout the election when 94% of black women and 80% of black men chose not to vote for him and was continuing leading up to the inauguration. Hence, when you go against the grain and perform for a man who does not care about your people, your issues, or your struggle, then you are slapping every black person in the face who has supported you and lifted you up. 

Her reasoning is understandable but not one that can be easily accepted. She told Billboard, “The first thing I thought was that I have an opportunity to get in front of these people who don’t seem to understand who they’re talking to and show them what we look like”. This thought process does not work because they know what we look like. They continue to see our fights and struggles and still do not care or brush them aside. She was willing to perform for a racist man that has openly discredited women and minorities alike. She failed to realize that she was only being used as a pawn in a “we are not racist” game that everyone saw and was trying to warn her to fight against. If she really wanted to show them what we looked like she would have declined the offer like her fellow counterparts did and showed them what unity within the black community looks like when we come and fight for a cause together. It was unfortunate that she realized a little too late what her actual purpose was for singing for President Trump. She told Billboard how the person in charge of the event told her she would be singing before he came out so she would not be able to meet him,  “My family has disowned me. If you decide to Google me, you’ll see that America is writing about me in their newspapers. I’m the black poster child for discord right now, and he’s not going to shake my hand?”.  She saw how she only created a fake bridge that had no true value and no one cared about. She failed the black community by allowing herself to be mistreated and used in the way that has happened to black performers for generations instead of standing up and protesting with her fellow performers. She may have failed us but we have failed her as well.

We failed her in the fact that although her decision was wrong we did not stand by her, instead, we tore her down and made her feel like nothing. We have shunned her. We have used the premise of if you do not stand up and fight with us then you are against us. We played in the continual stereotype of black people continually putting each other down instead of lifting each other up. Even Spike Lee has decided to take her off of his up and coming Netflix project. Some celebrities have taken a different approach to handling the situation such as  India Arie another R&B singer wrote Chrisette Michele an open letter on twitter explaining that although she would have never made the decision to perform herself she understands that Chrisette made a mistake like we always do. This should be our mentality when one falls we all fall so let us come together forgive and rise up together. Those in the black community claim to be “woke” all the time yet we allow our anger to further push people from accepting us by turning on each other. We all make mistakes we need to correct and learn to respect each other.