As soon as news spread that the Black Wicked Witch of the White House had been thrown out of the official presidential residence like she was Jazzy Jeff in a lost episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the melanated part of the country burst into a giggling fit not seen since we did the Electric Slide on the National Mall at Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Black America’s first cousin Angela Rye echoed our sentiments in a CNN appearance when she belly-laughed on live TV at reports that the bouncers had kicked Omarosa Manigault Newman out of Donald Trump’s whites-only nightclub.
Now that Omarosa is no longer a part of the Trump administration, she has become a punching bag for the wrath that many of us wish we could unleash on the entire administration. She has become the de facto vessel into which we have all poured our hate for the Creamsicle-colored commander in chief.
Over the weekend, someone dug up an old low-budget film of Omarosa clad in a red leather outfit, wiggling on-screen like an over-the-hill stripper having a seizure. The movie’s resurfacing serves no purpose except to further embarrass the villainous Omarosa. It has since been removed from YouTube, and it is hilarious.
There are countless numbers of black people who have been willing to accept the role of a minion in the army of our oppressors. It is not incumbent upon us to be the better people in the rare instances when we get to witness a traitor receive his or her comeuppance. We should not be required to take the high road every single time. Reciprocity is not malice. It just is.
Moreover, our giddiness over the plight of Omarosa isn’t even about Omarosa. She is a medium into which we have channeled our disdain for a racist regime that seeks to place its foot on the neck of nonwhite America. She chose this.
Even though no one can quite figure out exactly what she did as White House Office of Public Liaison communications director, whatever small role she played in the Trump administration means that she was an enabler of a regime that is blatantly anti-black. She was a friend of black America’s enemy, which, by definition, made her an enemy.
She accepted her $179,000-per-year salary and paraded around in front of black America as if she were anything but a sock puppet at whom the Trump administration pointed when they explained that they couldn’t be racist because they had a black friend. She wasn’t drafted. She was a free agent who freely decided to jump on the bandwagon of the team that excused white supremacist terrorists, traded in Islamophobia and used anti-immigrant sentiment to gain power. Now that the team has issued her walking papers and given her instructions on where she should avoid letting the doorknob hit, we should not feel sorry for singing, “Na na na na, hey hey hey … goodbye!”
So don’t feel bad about rejoicing over Omarosa’s misfortune. Be petty. Laugh at her when you spot her at the unemployment office. She is the one who chose to stiff-arm black people and join the parade of white nationalists, xenophobes and “alt-right” advocates.
People like Omarosa, Chrisette Michele and others who have been banned from the barbecue festivities never had anything much to offer anyway. They were the ones who showed up to the cookout with store-bought potato salad and got offended when people talked shit at the spades table. The only thing we must ask ourselves as a community is:
Who’s going to bring the aluminum foil?