We Love Michelle Obama

BECOMING, the Michelle Obama memoir, comes out this Tuesday. I'm sure it's already a best seller. You've probably heard that, in it, she wrote that she cannot forgive Donald Trump for putting her family's safety at risk with his whole birther movement.  That was his constant, disrespectful assertion that President Obama was not a true American. That he was African. (Fast forward in your mind and think about when he called Africa a "shithole country" in January.)  He demanded to see President Obama's birth certificate.  Mrs. Obama wrote that Trump's whole birther claim was "crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls?"

I cannot blame Michelle Obama one bit for having those feelings. Look at the Trump-fan kook who recently got caught sending mail bombs to broadcast and political Trump critics.

I'm a TV veteran. Several times, as a performer, I've had to sign a contract. Every single contract had the standard morals clause. That clause basically says that you, the talent, will behave yourself in public and not do anything that would embarrass the production or otherwise raise a stink. When Trump started that racially offensive birther business, he was host of THE APPRENTICE on NBC.  I thought for sure that the network would put that fire out immediately and/or suspend him. No. He kept at it. Tweeting his birther mess. Saying in TV interviews. All the while, we black folks are getting angrier and angrier at his white privilege disrespect of President Barack Obama.  Trump lied about President Obama and the network fed his reality TV game show host ego even more.

Did Trump not have a standard morals clause in a contract? Or did network executives not care about the feelings of Black Americans?

Yes, NBC later fired Trump after he called Mexicans "rapists and murderers." To me, that was a cosmetic move.  NBC had spent nearly $2 billion to purchase Telemundo, Spanish-language television.  Who were the people who wanted to slap the orange off of Donald Trump for that racist comment about Mexicans? Telemundo viewers.

Trump still got star treatment as he entered the presidential race.  Remember how TV critics across the board slammed Matt Lauer for a lightweight town hall interview of candidate Trump? Lauer grilled Tom Cruise harder than he did Donald Trump.  That gave me the feeling that Trump was the NBC/Universal candidate.  The Access Hollywood tape scandal? I think aging frat boy Billy Bush was fired for not protecting Trump. Billy, whom I've worked with, was hired by local WNBC News in 2001 with absolutely no TV experience and no journalism background. He was a rock morning radio DJ who was quite comfortable telling you that he was related to not just one...BUT TWO...U.S. presidents. He went network four months after his local debut. He started doing pieces on TODAY. Within a few years, in a move that seemed like a modern-day gender bender version of ALL ABOUT EVE. he was hired as a contributor on ACCESS HOLLYWOOD and eventually replaced the older male host.

My point? NBC likes the GOP.

Before the election, I had dinner with a very upscale white buddy of mine in New York City. He's been making a fabulous income for years and considers himself to be liberal. But he wasn't going to vote for Hillary.  He considered the reality TV game show host the lesser of two evils. He giggled at the "silly" birther thing.  I switched to the non-giggle lane with him in the passenger seat.  I explained seriously why the birther thing made us black people livid.  He didn't really get the racist undertones of what Trump was doing. He just saw him as the goofy rich white guy with the weird hair. I brought up the Central Park Five and how Trump called for the execution of five black/Latino teens, unjustly sent to prison, who were later found to be innocent. He hadn't really paid attention to that. He'd felt that Trump would be good for the country. I felt that network TV news was ignoring the red flags of what he was saying.

It came down to this.  Trump's Obama disrespect and the nasty things he said about Mexicans... that really had nothing to do with my very upscale white buddy's life.

But now he's been forced to get "woke."  Charlottesville. Putin. Kavanaugh. Mass shootings vs the NRA. Trump's constant lying and his assault on freedom of the press. Racism. Anti-Semitism.

Did Trump have a moral clause in an NBC contract in his years hosting The Apprentice? Why did news get dazzled by the orange smoke of his celebrityhood and not do the work of calling him out on his lies and racial offensiveness?  News should've paid attention to how angry we black folks were at Trump's birther bullshit. His racial disrespect for The Obamas was a major red flag and now he's also disrespecting the press. Yes. News should've paid attention to the anger of us black folks. To borrow a line Claudette Colbert did in 1942's THE PALM BEACH STORY, we knew Trump's birther business was "just an overture to the opera that's coming."

There you have it. A few thoughts from me. I can't wait to read BECOMING by Michelle Obama.