Professor Brittney Cooper is always one to speak her mind — even if it stirs up controversy. In the past, she blamed Donald Trump for obesity in Black women because of lack of access to good healthcare and good health insurance under Trump’s policies. Now she’s going on about Black men who are working with MAGA against the Democrats.
She’s harsh about it. The pro-Democratic Rutgers University associate professor, Cooper works in the Department of Africana Studies / Women’s and Gender Studies. On social media, she suggested that if Black men question Democratic Party rulers, they are “rogue” and akin to incels. Incels are involuntary celibates who are often blatantly sexist.
The professor counts hip-hop mogul Ice Cube among the offenders. When the news came out that Cube had helped the Trump campaign develop its plan for Black America, Cooper questioned how Ice Cube became a spokesman for Black America.
She tweeted, “Who is Ice Cube that the Democratic Party would feel the need to talk to him about the broad political concerns of Black America? Is he a political leader or organizer? No,” WRCB-TV reported.
Cooper recently tweeted as part of a longer thread, “I’m reminded that in the 19th century Black women used sex strikes to make sure that brothers didn’t vote against Black interests. Which is to say, there has always been this rogue Black male element among us. And Sisters have always been on point.”
She added, “Btw, this happened during the period when Black men could vote after 1870 and Black women couldn’t. Some brothers wanted to vote Dem back then but the GOP was the party of Lincoln. So Black women treated the vote of their dudes as a family vote.”
Cooper continued, “When those dudes tried to vote with the enemy (at that time the Dems who had fought to keep slavery), Black women withheld sex as one tactic to make Black men use the vote to benefit Black people.”
Some attacked Cooper for this notion.
“You’re really on a full blown tirade like Black men are the enemy. So sick of this tired narrative. Now you’re suggesting withholding the punnany to make us ‘act right?’ Wow, this is some crazy ish you out here talking in these tweets,” tweeted outspoken Bishop Talbert Swan, Bishop of the Nova Scotia Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Canada.
Cooper didn’t cave.
“Love how all these brothers defending Cube miss that Trump is pimping them for their raggedy desire to be like Trump (not gonna happen) and exploiting their ignorance,” Cooper tweeted. “He ain’t targeting you cuz you smart, but rather cuz you dumb. That is all.”
Many praised Cooper on social media.
Jimmie L. Pierre, Esq. tweeted, “I’m with you and ashamed to say that in this era where black people are under assault, “some” black men have been bamboozled by 45. We should be listening to black women!!!! In spite of those “weak links” Black men are still the 2nd largest demographic opposing 45.”
“I just said that,” BLACK TZEDEK tweeted. “Somebody needs to do a social media experiment on what makes someone ‘all of a sudden’ think a liar can be trusted. More importantly, that a racist even remotely gives AF about the Black community. When has ANY Black person dealing with Trump faired well?”
Prof. Cooper wrote the book, “Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition, 1892-Present” and is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, which was named a top feminist blog by New York Magazine in 2011.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Party’s sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.
Cooper often writes about gender and politics.
“America has this deep sense of Black women as people who come in to clean up the mess that they make,” Cooper said in a recent interview on Episode 2 of The Root Presents: It’s Lit!. “That has historically been our position. I call it us doing the custodial work of democracy.”
“Nevertheless, like us, she can’t help but maintain faith in ‘the thing that Black women typically do, which is that we clean up the mess and then we, we make some new possibilities,'” Maiysha Kai wrote for The Root.
