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Whenever I see a right-wing political figure embracing some hypermasculine element of Black culture, I think back to Steve Bannon’s prediction that the GOP would win 50% of Black male voters in 2022.
To be clear: Republicans got nowhere near such a percentage in last year’s midterms.
But Bannon’s remark was telling. It showed that conservatives saw an opportunity to reach Black men susceptible to right-wing propaganda — and cleave them from the bloc of Black voters who typically vote for Democrats.
All this came to mind the other day when my YouTube algorithm fed me a video of bigoted conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance on a popular hip-hop-focused podcast.
The Democratic presidential candidate joined battle rapper Math Hoffa’s podcast — ironically named “My Expert Opinion” — which Kennedy used to spread his far-from-expert opinions on an array of conspiracy theories. This time, however, his words were carefully couched in the parlance of social justice.
He said “toxicity” in the water supply is one of the worst problems for Black people, but failed to mention that he also uses this topic as a way to spout a conspiracy theory about transgender people. At one point, he even left the door open to the idea that the government is being run by a secret cult of devil worshippers.
He also told Hoffa they shouldn’t talk about the “V-word,” his code for vaccines. “If you’re on YouTube, we shouldn’t talk about that,” Kennedy said, alluding to action the platform has taken against him over vaccine misinformation.
Kennedy’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination has raised eyebrows among liberals. He has garnered cheers from conservative extremists like Bannon and Alex Jones; he has portrayed himself as a victim of government censorship; he has been a frequent guest on Fox News and other right-wing outlets; he has had high praise for Tucker Carlson; at least one super PAC backing him is fueled by a right-wing Republican; and he has been embraced by both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
Not exactly the makings of a liberal icon.
Given all of this, some people think he’s running solely as a spoiler candidate for Democrats, and his self-promotion as a sort of health-conscious savior to Black people is all the more disturbing in that light.
At a recent House hearing, Del. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands took Kennedy to task for his dangerous views on public health.
In a piece for MSNBC last week, the nonvoting congressional delegate wrote that the consequences of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric “have been alarming: lower vaccination rates, higher infection rates and a devastating disparity in health outcomes.”
It’s noteworthy that the far right’s outreach via hip-hop almost always involves Black men or platforms that target them. Take Carlson’s recent sit-down with rapper Ice Cube, for example. While the conservative agenda doesn’t offer Black people much in terms of policy, the fundamental patriarchy in conservatism does offer some Black men the promise of misogyny. For some Black men, buying into conservative ideals — especially around gender — assures them they’ll never fall to the lowest rung of the social ladder even if they are oppressed by white folks, because they’ll always be able to subjugate Black women. And the hip-hop industry, unfortunately, is rife with men willing to make this transaction.
Black women, on the other hand, seem less impervious to the kind of right-wing propaganda being pushed by Kennedy. (Though some are clearly vulnerable.) Perhaps that’s because many of them know that a Black woman, Kizzmekia Corbett, was at the forefront of developing the vaccine. And she, like many Black women, understands that medical racism often looks like denied access to adequate health care (like affordable vaccines), rather than the sci-fi-like experiments that Kennedy and his ilk claim are broadly afflicting Black folks.
No matter the reason, people like Stacey Plaskett have shown us what a conversation with RFK Jr. should look like, if one is to be had at all. Math Hoffa missed his chance, but let’s hope the rest of hip-hop gets the memo.