Yet the belief endures, from an earlier age until today, that visible, affluent African-American entertainers are obliged to adopt a pose of ceaseless gratitude, appreciation for the waiver that spared them the low status of so many others of their kind.
Stevie Wonder began a performance in Central Park Saturday night by taking a knee, prompting Congressman Joe Walsh to tweet that Wonder was “another ungrateful black multi-millionaire.”
Ungrateful is the new uppity.
Trump’s supporters, by a twenty-four-point margin, agree with the idea that most Americans have not got as much as they deserve, though they overwhelmingly withhold the right to that sentiment from African-Americans.
Thus, the wonder is not the unhinged behavior of that week but rather that it took Trump so long to exploit a target as rich in potential racial resentment as wealthy black athletes who have the temerity to believe in the First Amendment.