Y’all, the shameless caucasity in America has reached atmospheric levels this week. And watching this foolishness go down at the White House has got me thinking that an entire generation of Black elders owes us an amendment to the survival manual they raised us on.
When I was a Black girl child growing up in Jersey during the 80s and 90s, my elders repeatedly told me that if I ever wanted to be anything in America, I had to be “twice as good as the white man” just to get half as far.
They were wrong.
What they really should have told me was that white men have to be “half as good” as everybody else because the game is rigged for the rest of us before we even step on the playing field.
And come to think of it, they never said anything about white women. It was always just “the white man” this or “the white man” that in their lectures about education, qualifications, working hard, and getting a job. That’s probably because my elders never imagined that a Black woman would need multiple degrees and a CV longer than the King James version Bible just to compete with a white woman who apparently got her law license from the Great Wall of China and talks like somebody keeps shaking an Etch A Sketch every time she tries to finish a damn thought.
And if Y’all think I’m exaggerating, just go back and watch that press briefing. Watch all 14 minutes of it. And then come back and tell me you didn’t just watch this incompetent woman turn one of the most powerful communications podiums in the world into something resembling a Miss America contestant trying to sound out the words in a fourth-grade reading book while dragging one finger under every syllable, only to get stumped by a math problem asking what happens “IF JOHNNY HAD EIGHT APPLES AND GAVE AWAY THREE?”
Check her opening words: “I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people as the new White House press secretary. I want to thank President Trump for his trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long time.”
Did you hear that last line: “I have wanted to work for him for a very long time?” Ugh. This grown-ass, unqualified woman stood at the White House podium sounding like she had finally been picked to go back stage after spending her high school years writing Mrs. Donald Trump, Mrs. Donald Trump, Mrs. Donald Trump, Mrs. Donald Trump, in the margins of her Trapper Keeper during her lit classes. She didn’t give us nary a word about her qualifications or goals. Instead we got a dizzy woman reciting her MAGA wedding vows and devotion to Trump.
Then for the next eight minutes we heard a compilation of Trump’s greatest accomplishments.
Ma’am said: “This is historic.” “President Trump secured the biggest oil deal in world history.” “No other president could have gotten these deals done.” “President Trump is delivering on, just like he delivers on every promise.” Historic this and amazing that. Every damn thing she listed was the biggest, greatest, most un-fucking-precedented achievement in this new golden era of western civilization. I don’t know about Y’all, but I was sittin’ there waiting for her to announce that the man invented oxygen, parted the Red Sea, personally installed the sun, and is blessed and highly favored by Caucasian Jesus.
Then Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked: “Is your job just to speak about White House matters, or is it to make things less tough for Republicans in the midterms?”
Lord have mercy.
I need to give Y’all’s brains a trigger warning. Please stretch your neurons, loosen your frontal lobes, massage your ventral vagus nerve, and brace eyeballs for her sentences which are technically English but the words have apparently never met each other before.
Ma’am said: “Well, Peter, I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump’s incredible agenda for the American people.”
Amplify, multiply, expand.
WTF is this word salad stacked with decorative synonyms?! Are you the White House press secretary or a damn middle manager presenting third quarter deliverables at a Marriott conference center out here using three verbs in a trench coat pretending to be a coherent thought? Girl, you gave us three verbs, one idea, and no explanation of what you’re actually gonna do in this new role.
Instead of saying amplify, multiply, and expand, which are overlapping terms doing essentially the same boolshit rhetorical work here, you might as well have said, “Look Peter, “I’m going to make it bigger, make it bigger, and make it bigger. Boom! Next question, bitches.” Now, I don’t know Peter, but he might have gotten excited by this blonde woman’s quotable promising to make it bigger three times in a row.
She continued: “And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply, to the extent possible, all of the wins he’s making for Americans, for — for Americans to understand how much has changed in this brief period of time, what he’s been able to accomplish.”
I know Y’all caught all them onlys.
ONLY build on. ONLY amplify. ONLY multiply. Sweet baby Jesus twerking on a thesaurus! Girl, why are using three ONLYs in a sentence about doing more of everything? You got “only” out here working three jobs, none of which it’s qualified for. But thank you for accidentally demonstrating how an unqualified white woman’s adverbs got hired through DEI: Delusion, Entitlement, and Incoherence.
Then check her last line: “My goal is to be able to communicate that in complete tandem with the president, as he is his own best spokesperson and will absolutely be leading the way as — with that.”
AS—WITH THAT?! Say what now?
Girl, how is it that your sentence started off by holding hands with the president, then took a wrong turn at “tandem,” and then plunged into a ditch behind a MAGA double wide somewhere between “as” and “with that” with multiple clauses missing?
And not to mention, Ma’am said the president is his own best spokesperson. So then tell me why in the hell are the American people paying for another one? Run taxpayers them refund coins.
And did y’all hear her slip and call the president her husband? Y’all ain’t believe me when I said she was writing his name in her Trapper Keeper. Somebody needs to check the margins of her briefing notes. I bet she got drawings of little orange hearts and lines of “Mrs Donald Trump” written with a glitter pen or maybe one of them chunky BIC 4-Color Retractable Pens.
I could go on analyzing this press conference which was something to behold. But one could summarize this hot mess as 14 minutes where the new press secretary gave us a briefing book full of Trumpian praise, three reporters got to ask questions, and the press corps was essentially told to take its questions to the president who later congratulated Zacharia and called her debut “commanding.”
And now, there’s controversy over her law license which she first claimed she got when she moved to China, and has now said she had misunderstood the question.
Katie Zacharia is deservedly being dragged all over social media for her disastrous and embarrassing debut. But there’s something ugly underneath all the banter and humor that we need to address. What irritates the hell out of me is that white America has spent decades demanding proof that qualified Black women deserve their seats in higher education and their hard won career positions. And here comes Trump’s latest appointment serving as a rather inconvenient illustration of the difference between the meritocracy that conservatives and MAGATs preach and the political patronage they actually practice.
While these racists are constantly hawk spitting “DEI” this or that in Black women’s faces, Zacharia exposes the DEI program folks don’t wanna talk about: white privilege.
Listen, I’ve come across mediocre and unqualified white women like Zacharia. Sitting next to me in classrooms, in corporate offices, nonprofit orgs, and newsrooms. I know some of Y’all have too. She’s got a whole lot of confidence that routinely exceeds any demonstrable competence. Give her a couple of drinks at happy hour and she’ll spill how she got the gig because somebody knows somebody who knows somebody. HR tells her that she’s a “good fit.” She gets applauded for doing the bare minimum. And she drops the ball on a project and cries, she gets all kinds of grace and opportunities for redemption.
Meanwhile, a sista sittin’ three offices down the hall is listening to the “twice as good” whispers in her head while being treated like she’s trespassing in a position she has spent her entire life preparing to occupy. There she is doing her job, correcting her mistakes, training her replacement, getting paid less, and being told by managers and coworkers that she needs to work on her attitude and smile more.
So listen Y’all, this ridiculous, irksome moment is about more than just one incompetent press secretary fumbling through her first day on the job. Zacharia is the public face of a racist regime that has declared war on DEI, higher ed, civil rights protections, and is trying to strangle the hell out of us every which way. They are trying to take away opportunities and clog every pipeline that might help us escape poverty and lead thriving lives. And they’re trying to justify this evil by arguing that America must return to a system of hiring based strictly on merit. And now, hundreds of thousands of Black women have endured devastating employment losses and watched their qualifications become political punching bags.
This racist nation keeps demanding that Black women overcome their presumed incompetence, and even when she does, inevitably she will still be told that she got her job because of her race. Because apparently, meritocracy is the most important principle in American civilization right up until somebody asks a Trump appointee a question about her résumé.
My people, the caucacious hypocrisy is shamelessly breathtaking. Umph, umph, UMPH.
Thanks for reading. If this piece resonated with you, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscriptions help keep my Substack unfiltered and ad free. They also help me raise money for HBCU journalism students who need laptops, DSLR cameras, tripods, mics, lights, software, travel funds for conferences and reporting trips, and food from our pantry. You can also follow me on Facebook!
We appreciate you!
