Black MAGA & All That: Can We Still Reason Together?
Jul 03, 2025Commentary: By Salim Muwakkil, host of the "Salim Muwakkil Show" on WVON 1690 AM, journalist, and community activist.
Click on the links in the blog to read the original story posted by Emma Young on Facebook.
A response to the backlash against AI, Emma Young, and the challenge of nuance in the age of ideological extremes.
It’s time to address an issue that seems to be getting a bit out of hand, and that's the hyperbolic response of Black Trumpians to increasing criticism of their stance. I make this point after reading the overwrought responses to Chat GPT’s answer of Emma Young’s question: Why do so many African Americans embrace MAGA?
Now, take note; although A.I. answered the question Emma asked, injured Black Trumpians are attacking her as if she somehow colluded with ChatGPT to cast aspersions on their intelligence.
The AI system responded with a general answer to the question of why some Black folks backed (and still back) Trump: “Cognitive Dissonance and Identity Splits,” it summarized.
But it didn’t just issue a name-calling summary … it went deep into the particulars of those specific conditions with compelling arguments. (See: Emma in my posts, June 28)
In fact, the post itself effectively refutes Black MAGAs’ best justification, which is: Trump is at least an honest Devil, whose overt hostility will denude us of integrationist delusions and force us to do for self. Along these lines, some are using NOI doctrine to justify their Trumpiness. Some even argue that the Messenger warned us of MAGA way back, and that justifies Trump’s presence.
What many of those revisionists elide is the Messenger’s historical context and the fact that he could have co-signed any of the segregationist policymakers (who gladly would have preferred we “do for self”) widely afoot in his days, but he didn’t.
THEM (The Hon., Elijah Muhammad) taught economic nationalism but understood the value of economic access.
But I speak of nuances here, and the heavy-handed attacks on a Sister simply for showcasing an AI-derived polemic make it clear that nuances may be a tad too subtle.
However, tit-for-tat acrimony is not the answer either.
We must try to be civil in our arguments, but it’s hard for me to understand how there are some Black Americans who think that MAGA policies have our best interests at heart.
Emma’s Chat GPT answer helped, but it also opened the floodgates for a diffusion of vitriol that makes further discourse difficult. And that shouldn’t be the case.
We should be able to reason this out. Shouldn’t we?
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