From Fannie Lou Hamer to Cardi B

A Black Eyed History Lesson

The march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in March 1965.

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***THIS ESSAY USES ADULT LANGUAGE***

Find an audio reading of this Black Eyed Story above

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Cardi B told the world she’s sitting this presidential election out.

In an interview for Rolling Stone, her exact words to each of the candidates were: “I don’t f*ck with both of y’all nigg*s.” When pushed to clarify this stunning statement, the rapper, whose moxie and hustle I have long adored, listed the following reasons for her decision: 

• She doesn’t like the Biden administration’s domestic and foreign policies. 

• She’s doesn’t like low wages combined with the high cost of living.

• She’s doesn’t like Biden’s backing of the war in Gaza or in Ukraine.

In 2020 she endorsed Biden, but since then has felt “layers and layers of disappointment.” She feels “betrayed,” and has vowed to never endorse a candidate again. She’s pissed because, while the country can “fund two wars,” there have been budget cuts in New York City: 

“I’m not endorsing no fucking presidents no more, because how is there a $100 million budget cut in New York City for fucking schools, library, police safety, and sanitation?”

It’s wild y’all. Cardi B is not some one-off. She has 167 million followers on Instagram and just over 496 thousand committed followers who have joined her BG Secret Society. The post for her Rolling Stone interview got 477,649 likes. Of course she’s beautiful, so most of those likes will be for the Cardi-B-wonder-of-it-all. Most of those likes won’t take the time to go and read the article. I’m no Cardi B, but I know from personal experience that a like does not a reader make. However, the quote, “I don’t f*ck with both of y’all nigg*s” has already gone viral. 

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We are in trouble y’all. Cardi B isn’t the only one who’s disillusioned, fed-up, tired, frustrated and… well, pissed off with just about anything having to do with our elections. Black people have had enough. 

This year, 62% of Black people from a recent poll of over 1,300 Black people said they’re “absolutely certain to vote.” In 2020, it was 74%. 

The 12% drop comes from young Black people ages 18-39. For perspective, you should know Cardi B is 31 years old, and you should also know one of the main reasons Biden won in 2020 was because young Black voters came out to vote. They weren’t the sole reason but they were the sprinkles needed to complete the icing on the cake. If those sprinkles would’ve been left off, the 2020 election would’ve served us an entirely different, far more ordinary cake. 

We need every single sprinkle, but I’m afraid we’re fresh out. I’m terrified that the 2024 election is going to serve us up a cake sprinkled with raisins instead. 

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From the mazon documentary "All In: The Fight for Democracy"

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The soundbites from Cardi B’s interview say a whole lot about Biden and her distrust of his administration. It says very little about his opponent – a serial sexual assaulter, rapist, racist, xenophobe, fraudster, insurrectionist, far-right extremist, ego-maniac, and wanna-be-dictator. 

I understand her not “fucking” with either candidate. But who is asking anyone to “fuck” with a president?

Did Dr. King “fuck” with JFK or LBJ? I mean, were they invited to the picnic? I don’t think so. I don’t think Dr. King fucked with either. But what I do know is that he 100% “fucked” with equality and voter rights. 

I’m pretty sure King probably would’ve preferred a candidate who wasn’t more concerned with putting a man on the moon than putting Black folks into voting booths. I’m pretty sure he would’ve preferred a candidate who wasn’t signing the Civil Rights amendments on camera, but referring to Black folks as “niggers” off camera. 

I can’t imagine where we’d be if Dr. King decided not to bother pressing for voting rights because he felt “layers and layers of disappointment” with political leaders. Where would we be if he’d encouraged Black folks *not* to vote because he was too pissed off about the amount of money JFK spent on NASA? What if he’d decided not to march for jobs because he was too pissed off when LBJ bombed Vietnam? Where would we be if King didn’t know how to deal with the nuance tucked between the layers of his disappointment? 

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Dr. King mugshot

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Was it worth it for Dr. King to spend those nights in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama? And was it worth it for John Lewis to get the absolute shit kicked out of him, and was it worth it for Octavius Catto, Maceo Snipes, Lamar Smith, and James Chaney to die so that Cardi B could stay home and not vote because she doesn’t “fuck” with either candidate? 

Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested, thrown in jail, and then beat down in her jail cell because she wanted to vote. She was 46 years old. She died at 59 years old - just 4 years older than I am today.

In the 1964 presidential election, I don’t think Hamer “fucked” with President Johnson or Barry Goldwater. But I’m damn sure she voted for one of them. I would imagine she voted for LBJ, the one who did his best to keep White Americans from watching her Congressional testimony, and most assuredly called her nigger in his private quarters. I find it hard to imagine she voted for Barry Goldwater, of whom Dr. King said, "while not himself a racist, [he] articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racists.” 

I get it. Cardi B and a whole generation of young Black people are, to quote Fannie Lou Hamer, “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” But good lawd! Cardi B is an entertainer who is “sick and tired” but worth millions while Hamer was a “sick and tired” sharecropper who died from a combination of heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer, having given away everything she had. 

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Fannie Lou Hamer, center with, from left, Emory Harris, Stokely Carmichael (straw hat), Sam Block, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Ella Baker 1976

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I have to admit, when I was in my 20s and 30s, I didn’t always vote. I also couldn’t have told you a thing about Ida B. Wells or Fannie Lou Hamer or Ella Baker. I skipped voting because, as I used to ignorantly and abhorrently say, “my people fought for my right not to vote.” If I had a stick and a time machine, trust and believe I’d go back and beat myself like Hamer was beat in that jail cell. 

I used to skip voting when I thought Dr. King was a nice man who just wanted Black and White kids to have the right to hold hands. What did I know? I’d never read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I’d never read the entirety of his I Have A Dream speech. I didn’t know his march on Washington was called March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I didn’t know thousands swung in trees, lynched for just existing. I’d never heard of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

I didn’t vote because I was ignorant.

I didn’t vote because I wasn’t a sharecropper. I didn’t vote because, back then, I didn’t know what a sharecropper was.

But now I know without a doubt that I got ancestors—cousins, aunties, uncles—who were “sick and tired” sharecroppers in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and West Virginia. God only knows the prayers they prayed for me, but I would guess one of them was that I’d never have to be a sharecropper – and so, they voted. Not because they “fucked” with this candidate or that candidate, but because their layers and layers of hope far outweighed their layers and layers of disappointment. 

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Selma “Bloody Sunday” 1965

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Cardi B and the rest of them can vote or not vote. It’s entirely their prerogative. But I got blood roots that run from the cotton and tobacco and sugar fields straight to every single voting booth. 

I’m voting because blood is thicker than water. 

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SNCC—Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—1963

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Like Cardi B, I don’t fuck with either candidate. But unlike her, I’ve never “fucked” with a presidential candidate – not even Obama because, let’s be honest, I don’t know Obama like that. I’ve never met the man. Turns out, I didn’t need to “fuck” with him to vote for him. I’ve only heard White men claim they needed to feel they could have a beer with a president in order to vote for him. What in the privileged-nonsense is that? 

Like Cardi B, I hate that my beloved Chicago is so beat upon, particularly my very Black southside neighborhood. 

Like Cardi B, I don’t like the low wages that can barely put a pot of beans on the table. 

Like Cardi B, I don’t like Biden’s handling of Palestine. 

However, I have to look at the situation in its entirety:

1. If I don’t vote for Biden, how will my non-vote punish him and not me?

2. If he doesn’t win and Trump does (which is the only possible outcome at this point), who truly wins? Definitely not those who are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” 

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Kevin Seefried and his Confederate battle flag. January 6, 2021

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If Cardi B has layers and layers of disappointment now, I don’t think she can imagine the layers and layers of disappointment she’ll have if Trump wins and he gets everything he wants on his Project 2025 list: 

• Firing of at least 50,000 government employees

• Criminalizing pornography, which is criminalizing a form of freedom of expression

• Removing protections for gender and sexual identity

• Terminating all DEI initiatives and programs

• Abolishing Affirmative Action

• Invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 and criminalizing peaceful protests

• Defunding the FBI and DOJ and the Department for Homeland Security

• Pardoning the January 6^th Insurrectionists

• Disengaging from climate change initiatives 

• Abolishing the Department of Education 

• Defunding scientific research that doesn’t support a far-right, conservative Christian worldview

• Restricting access to contraception 

• Increasing abortion limitations 

• Rolling back voting rights 

• Defunding Medicare and Medicaid 

And outside these plans, he’s also threatened to: 

• Leave NATO 

• Allow Russia to do whatever they want to Ukraine

• Deport Pro-Palestine student protesters

• Build internment camps for undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers 

• Send military troops into blue cities like New York and Chicago

• Put his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of brokering a deal with Israel 

• Give more money to Israel so that it can have “total victory” 

So… I’m gonna vote for Biden, not because I “fuck” with him more than I “fuck” with Trump, but because I “fuck” with marginalized people and I don’t want to see them “fucked” even more than they are fucked. 

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