Tonight, the Celebrity Apprentice aired the "epic" confrontation between two "angry black women" that they have teased all season. The underlying message is simple: reducing two black women to shouting hoodrats in a competition equals big ratings. It worked for VH1 when promoting the Flavor of Love series, so why wouldn't it work on network television? After all, Donald J. Trump is the man who brought us Omarosa Manigault Stallworth, the woman with multiple college degrees and no home training.
On tonight's episode, NeNe Leakes (whomever she is) and Star Jones (who is no longer on The View, but Tracy Morgan's wife from 30 Rock somehow is) got into an epic fight that utilized words like "street," "punk ass bitch," and "long-form birth certificate." Okay, so maybe two out of three, but you get the point. The argument exposed a stereotype about African American women that rears its ugly head in the back of society's mind: even the most educated among them (Star Jones was a lawyer at some point in time) still can become Sheneneh in a heartbeat.
But back to the aforementioned possible Presidential Nominee. Is he using this stereotype to curry favor among potential primary voters? Of course he is. Is The Donald trying to exploit negative stereotypes of African Americans to enhance his television brand? Well if he weren't, he wouldn't be Donald J. Trump. Remember, the guys does count African Americans among people he has a great relationship with.
Trump, however, shouldn't be punished for this exploitation. He's a businessman trying to make a buck. That's what he should do. If there is to be any backlash, it should be done so in the smart way: hit him in the pocketbook. If people want to create a counter to Trump's exploitation, then stop spending money on his sponsors and turn the channel when he and his hair grace the airwaves.
He's hoping that this fight will remind America about their prejudices, and remind them that in 2012 they should vote for the person who isn't married to an "angry black woman." You know, because she may get all ghetto fabulous on Vladimir Putin or go all project ho on Ahmadinejad. Despite the fact that, of course, Mrs. Obama is an Ivy League graduate like Mr. Trump.
The exploitation of race is nothing new in American entertainment or politics. It is only going to get nastier over time. But at some point in time, reasonable Americans will look at this blatant reality tv-based attempt to play the stereotype hand as nothing but a sideshow to the real issues facing American families. Politics creates strange bedfellows, but the founding fathers never imagined a show based on a twice-bankrupt modern robber baron's business ethics. For if they did, Paul Revere's midnight ride might have included "the hair is coming, the awful, brutal hair is coming." No telling how history would have been different.
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