Trump Is Trying to Start a Twitter War with Jay-Z
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Van Jones on Saturday night, Jay-Z had some relatively mild words for Donald Trump. Not only did he take issue with the president calling Haiti and African countries "shitholes," but he elaborated that covering up racism without really addressing it just allows it to fester and become a "superbug." To him, Donald Trump is what you get when that happens.
Now, Jay-Z was quick to point out that Trump is also a human being, telling Jones that he's someone who was hurt at some point in his life and that hurt is probably what's driving him today. Those are pretty softball accusations, considering Eminem has dedicated diss tracks to the president and called for him to be replaced with a literal turd. Plus, it's on CNN, which Trump famously doesn't watch, so the whole thing probably doesn't merit any consideration from him.
Anyway, Trump responded within hours, because of course he watches CNN manically, so there's no way he could let any of that fly.
It's not clear what policies Trump is talking about here. As Vox points out, black unemployment is historically low, but it's been falling from a high of 16.7 percent for the last six years. Black unemployment is still double that of whites. On top of that, the drop has actually slowed under Trump, meaning the rate of growth for black employment has been cut in half since he became president. Besides, as Jones pointed out after Trump's tweet, he and Jay-Z already talked about that:
Of course, this is more about Trump's demands for gratitude from black people than it is about actual facts. We've seen it before in his demands that black NFL players be grateful that they're allowed to play, and in his calls to have Jemele Hill fired from ESPN. Unfortunately for the president, Jay-Z doesn't have a manager that he can ask to speak to.
