President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House in Washington, March 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)/ Social media influencer Lady Whistledown in the Hood, Screenshot, TikTok/Vice President Kamala Harris, Feb. 27, 2023, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
There’s a video that has gone viral on TikTok and Twitter from an influencer who goes by the social media name Lady Whistledown in the Hood in which she is criticizing reparations activists for threatening to withhold their votes from the Democrats until a reparations bill is passed.
During the past two presidential elections, there has been a shift of a surprising percentage of Black male votes hopping to the GOP. Several Black notables, such as Ice Cube, have called for a party switch unless Democrats actually earn the Black vote.
But Black Americans are still solidly Democrat, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats, according to the 2020 book “Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior” by Ismail White and Chryl Laird.
Influencer Lady Whistledown in the Hood, who is a co-host of the So For Us podcast that focuses on the Black millennial experience, in the Hood seems not to agree that the Black vote should be earned. There is not much more info on who Lady Whistledown in the Hood is or her background.
In the video she posted on TikTok, she uses a diagram to explain “what they mean by reparations and tangibles,” she says.
“So based on my conversation with the ‘Pro Black African Brigade,’ they have a plan for tangibles. And it looks something like this,” she says, turning to the diagram.
“Democrats and Republicans are anti-Black do nothing for Black people,” she says, giving the pro-reparations side. “So they plan to use grassroots organizations to get a reparations law, but they plan to withhold their vote so Democrats and Republicans who are Anti-Black people and do nothing for Black people can earn their vote to pass a reparations law.”
She said the technique of reparations activists is “yelling at them and people who subscribe to either party.”
She points out that the Democrats are pushing for a reparations study, and if they do back and vote for the Democrats, they would get the study. She stresses that the Republicans “don’t want reparations at all,” so reparations activists would get nothing if they voted Republican.
She notes that the activists’ ’’ultimate goal is to get $20 trillion in a down payment for reparations from somebody who is either Democrats and Republicans who are Anti-Black people and do nothing for Black people.”
She wraps up the video by sarcastically saying, “totally makes sense.”
It’s not only reparations activists who say the Democrats should earn the Black voter, there are other voices calling for the same.
Black voters are routinely let down by America’s political system, according to Paul Frymer, a professor of politics at Princeton, who wrote the 1999 book, “Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America.”
This letdown happens despite the fact that the Black voter turnout is consistently among the highest in the U.S., reaching nearly 60 percent during the historic 2008 presidential election when Barack Obama won the presidency.
Frymer argues that “this occurs because both parties believe that the coveted undecided white moderate is disdainful to (if not outright hostile to) efforts that advance Black representation – a belief borne out by American history,” Reappropriate reported.
President Joe Biden speaks during an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, March 23, 2023, celebrating the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)/ Social media influencer Lady Whistledown in the Hood, Screenshot, TikTok/Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event to celebrate Black History Month, Feb. 27, 2023, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
