“We’re not going to sugarcoat it no more,” LaTosha Brown tells theGrio.
LaTosha Brown wants undecided Black voters this election cycle to know one thing about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: He “ain’t s–t.”
Brown’s voting rights organization, Black Voters Matter PAC, recently used the explicit phrase about Trump in an election ad aimed at setting the record straight about his presidency.
“Did you know that Trump wanted the military to actually shoot Black Lives Matter protesters?” Brown says in the ad, which includes Black Voters Matter co-founder Cliff Albright, journalist Roland Martin and others.
Albright reminds voters in the ad that Trump “let people die during COVID and then told us to drink bleach.”
Brown, debunking perceptions about Trump sending “stimmy” checks to Americans during the pandemic, adds, “He tried to kill the stimulus bill and couldn’t, so he delayed the money just so he could put his name on the checks.”
Addressing the economy further, Martin says in the ad, “He f–ked up [President Barack] Obama’s economy, lost thousands of Black jobs, he started inflation and gave his billionaire buddies a tax cut.”
Another person in the ad recalled Trump’s final days in office in which he “used the death penalty to execute Black men like Brandon Bernard Keith.”
Speaking to theGrio about the “Trump ain’t s–t” ad, LaTosha Brown says, “It was very intentional because Black colloquialisms work.”
While most traditional election ads, particularly those coming from campaigns, are moderate in language, Brown said it was important to “go straight to the heart” of the issue of Trump and the threats he poses to Black communities.
“There’s a way that we capture what people are feeling that normally, you don’t see in the discourse,” she told theGrio. “All we did is give voice to what we’re hearing.”
Brown noted that the “ain’t s–t” phrase was an actual comment initially made by an older female voter that Black Voters Matter had engaged with while on the ground.
The “brilliance” of Black colloquialism like that, she said, is that “[Black] people know what that means.”
“It summarizes and captures what we feel, but oftentimes we don’t have the space to be able to say it, and so we’re affirming [them],” Brown added.
While Brown expressed confidence that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will win the election against Trump, she wants Black voters to “do our part.”
More importantly, she wants all Black Americans — men, women and young people alike — to see this election as a “reprimand against racism.”
Throughout the election cycle, Trump and Republicans have lobbed racist attacks against Harris and voters of color, particularly immigrants. Most notably, Harris has been called a DEI hire and Trump has question her IQ level and called her “lazy” — a historically racist trope used against Black people in America.
While there has been much debate among Black voters about “policy details,” whether the economy or Gaza, Brown said, “We’re not gonna play to this effort to actually confuse us.”
The activist maintained, “We’re gonna be clear and remember what really happened. We’re gonna tell the truth on that.”
She added, “We’re not going to sugarcoat it no more.”
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