President Donald Trump on Sunday attacked rapper Jay-Z after the musician and businessman criticized remarks Trump allegedly made calling African nations “shithole countries.”
“Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!” Trump tweeted.
Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier in January that unemployment among black workers is at its lowest since the bureau started tracking such data, but that unemployment rate has been declining since 2011, and has fallen consistently since then. Despite his claims, Trump’s policies do not appear to have affected that rate.
The Washington Post reported in January that Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” and asked why the United States allows people to immigrate from them. Trump denied using “the language” cited in reports about his remarks, but did not specifically address his alleged phrasing.
President of United States spends his time getting into pissing matches with rappers. Can’t make this stuff up…
Keeping it real.
“Alleged” ‘Shithole Countries’ Remark?
He said it. The only people who deny it either say, “I wasn’t listening” or “He said shithouse, not shithhole!”
He said it.
Bill C. went after Sistah Soljah,
Hey, Trump, let’s just ignore the topic of the criticism (shithole countries comment and racism itself) and also just assume that Jay-Z’s criticism was made because he’s black (spoiler alert, white people think the comment was wrong and way-out-of-line racist), and therefore respond in a racist way and talk about black unemployment rates, which have nothing to do with your shithole countries comments or any of your policies or programs (and which unemployment rate was going down long before Trump came along, and are overshadowed by his other racist policies and rhetoric).
ETA: One of the better comments that Jay-Z made in the interview was in this exchange - as reported in Vox:
Van Jones on Saturday noted that, whatever the cause, unemployment among black Americans is lower under Trump, to which Jay-Z responded that, frankly, given consistent evidence of Trump’s racism, it doesn’t really matter. “It’s not about money at the end of the day. Money is not, money doesn’t equate to happiness. It doesn’t,” he said. “That’s missing the whole point. You treat people like human beings, then, that’s the main point.”