FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
FRIDAY Opinion
“I
was careful to choose who I think
will meet the challenge,” the Insta-
gram direct message read. “Post a
photo in black and white alone,
write ‘challenge accepted’ and mention my
name. Identify 50 women to do the same.”
The instructions encouraged me to use the
hashtag #WomenSupportingWomen.
The challenge felt like a balm in a week
when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
was reportedly c alled a “f------ b----” by a
Republican lawmaker, a Latina judge’s fam-
ily was attacked by a virulent misogynist and
hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion posted
about the hate and abuse she got after being
shot. It also felt like an opportunity for Black
women to use their photo caption space to
call for justice for Breonna Taylor, who was
killed in March by police in Kentucky.
Scrolling during lockdown time, I, too,
uploaded a black-and-white photo. Then
came the backlash against the trend.
“Challenge NOT accepted,” Taylor Lorenz,
a reporter from the New York Times, wrote in
a tweet. “I wrote about how the black and
white selfie challenge is basically meaning-
less and doesn’t accomplish anything aside
from self promotion.” In an article, Lorenz
compared the #ChallengeAccepted phenom-
enon to the #BlackOutTuesday debacle, in
which celebrities, brands and influencers
posted black tiles thinking they were helping
the cause for #BlackLivesMatter. In reality,
considering how most of those same feeds
have gone back to regular programming, the
gestures felt empty and performative.
As I have written before, #BlackOutTues-
day might have made people feel as though
they were participating in a mass movement
to raise awareness and cultivate solidarity for
Black lives under threat from police brutality.
But the original campaign was started by
Black creatives calling for people to take the
day to post about Black creativity and Black
people and to amplify our voices.
The doubts about the original intent be-
hind these efforts speak to the precarious-
ness of social media activism, with platforms
that appear to have a democratizing effect
while real-world power and privilege imbal-
ances remain intact.
In the case of #ChallengeAccepted, some
said it originated in Turkey after women
began protesting the brutal murder of a
27-year-old woman, Pinar Gultekin, allegedly
by her ex-boyfriend. On social media, Turkish
people began posting black-and-white pic-
tures of Turkish women who had been killed
by men as a way to denounce femicide.
However, Lorenz reported in the Times
that the black-and-white photo trend dates at
least from 2016 and has been used for “cancer
awareness” and to “spread positivity.”
How it reached users in the United States
and other countries in its current form is
unclear. Vanessa Bryant, widow of the late
basketball star Kobe Bryant, appears to be one
of the early celebrity adopters, who told her
other celebrity friends to post the challenge.
Other celebrities with huge followings joined
in with the #ChallengeAccepted tag, so much
so that the Turkish efforts were drowned out
in the sea of more than 3 million photos on
Instagram. Once I learned about the Turkish
link to the trend, I edited my caption to
highlight those activists’ intentions.
It all brought back the days of #BringBack-
OurGirls, the viral campaign in 2014 after the
kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls
from Chibok by Nigerian Islamist militant
group Boko Haram. The hashtag was started
by Oby Ezekwesili, an activist and former
World Bank executive. Once the hashtag
reached an American audience, politicians
and celebrities, including Michelle Obama,
spread the message to pressure the adminis-
tration of Goodluck Jonathan to try to return
the girls to their families.
I feared a real downside to powerful and
wealthy American social media users getting
the ear of the government, which could trig-
ger a response to Nigeria’s issues with milita-
rized violence under our war on terrorism. I
knew drones and bombs could not solve a
problem that had roots in Nigeria’s complex
history, religious divides and governmental
failures. But we still used our platforms for
the cause. Still, years later, many of the girls
have not returned. While it is true that Ameri-
can participation and amplification drew
global attention, the desired outcome did not
happen, as 112 girls were still missing as of
last year. At the end of the day, engaging with
Boko Haram is still up to Nigeria and its
government.
Which brings us back to the latest chal-
lenge. Where does this leave those of us who
participated without understanding all the
ramifications or possible origins of the trend?
Is what we did completely meaningless?
I don’t think so. I can’t see a gesture of
solidarity as meaningless at a time when
women are the essential workers fighting
against the novel coronavirus on the front
lines, when female politicians and artists are
being verbally and physically assaulted.
There is meaning in feeling connected and
seen, especially during an isolating global
pandemic.
But the ethical thing to do would be to take
the time to read, understand and share more
about the struggles of those women who also
share hashtags and black-and-white photos
with us.
Perhaps show Turkish women, currently
raising their voices in the aftermath of an-
other horrific attack, that we see them and
support them, too.
Twitter: @KarenAttiahKAREN ATTIAHWhen activism
isn’t as simple
as black and
white
P
resident Trump dissembles with
great frequency, but he generally
lacks the sharpness and subtlety
to successfully deceive. He will
lie to your face, but he has trouble
concealing his intentions.
Take this recent Trump tweet: “I am
happy to inform all of the people living
their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you
will no longer be bothered or financially
hurt by having low income housing built
in your neighborhood.”
As a policy matter, Trump is referring
to a change in fair-housing rules. Dur-
ing the Barack Obama era, localities
that received federal housing funding
were required to address any biased
practices that concentrated low-income
housing in small geographic areas. The
Trump administration has lifted that
requirement.
But Trump did not merely declare this
revision. His language laid bare his moti-
vating biases. He was “happy” to make
the announcement. Rather than being a
distressing duty, exclusion seems to
gladden his dreary day. The president
then embraced the capitalized, perhaps
trademarked “Suburban Lifestyle
Dream” — which I assume is like the
American Dream, but with nicer lawns
and fewer minority neighbors. These
suburban dreamers will no longer be
“bothered” by fellow citizens they con-
sider unsightly. As if this pledge weren’t
crass enough, Trump assured the subur-
banites they will no longer be “financial-
ly hurt” by sharing their parks and
neighborhoods with, you know, those
people. The president may have ruined
the economy through pandemic negli-
gence, but his urgent priority seems to be
the protection of suburban property val-
ues from predatory diversity.
We can be confident this tweet was
racist rather than classist because it
came in a certain context. Trump was
fresh from refusing to attend John Lew-
is’s memorial events, and tweeting a
supporter yelling “White power!”, and
passing along videos of Black people
assaulting White people, and playing
down police violence against African
Americans, and defending Confederate
monuments and place names, and sup-
porting right-wing groups carrying Con-
federate flags as they marched on state
capitals, and observing that “people
love” the Confederate flag.
Jefferson Davis always wanted to see a
Confederate battle flag raised over the
White House. At least in spirit, he has
finally gotten his wish.
In Trump’s approach to politics, all is
flexible, all is negotiable, except the driv-
ing instinct of us vs. them. And it is not
just a coincidence that the us is over-
whelmingly White. Trump’s most consis-
tent, defining goal has been the preser-
vation of white supremacy against grow-
ing diversity. As we now see fully, he
holds out the promise of a suburban,
segregated promised land.
Those who dismiss this criticism as
“playing the race card” must ignore
Trump’s constant employment of the
racism card. Those who dismiss these
concerns as “identity politics” must
somehow overlook the White identity
politics that drives his public appeal.
Trump’s approach is apostasy from the
American ideal. It is the kind of thing
that can lead to the breaking of nations.
Trumpism involves not only the fail-
ure of moral sensibility but also the
failure of historical consciousness. The
president seems entirely ignorant of the
American narrative. It is a story of high
ideals and hypocritical compromises. Of
heroes offended by the gulf between our
democratic aspirations and the reality
around them, who pushed our country
to resolve its deepest internal contradic-
tions. Of halting, stumbling, continuing
progress toward a political system that
honors the value and dignity of every
human life.
Playing even a small part in this un-
folding story is one of history’s great
honors. It is the reason to serve in gov-
ernment. The reason to write about poli-
tics. The reason to vote and participate.
This could be an inflection point in
our history. The unblinking eye of social
media has revealed the persistence and
horrors of racial injustice. The nation
seems to have reached a critical mass of
disgust and conscience.
This is the main reason that Republi-
cans — in the Oval Office, in the Senate,
in the House — must lose, and lose
decisively. Trump has made national
Republicans fully complicit in his revolt
against American principles. Party loy-
alty now consists of defending the inde-
fensible. By the nature of our constitu-
tional order, a firm decision against
bigotry is an entry-level commitment of
American politics. Trump’s pervasive in-
fluence among Republicans has necessi-
tated their repudiation.
The president is ignorant of America’s
history, indifferent to its ideals and blind
to the nobility of the political enterprise.
For most elected Republicans, the stain
of complicity is probably indelible. But a
presidential election can be a window —
a short window — for recovery and
renewal. Assuming our nation still has
ambitions higher than the Suburban
Lifestyle Dream.
[email protected]MICHAEL GERSONTrump’s
white identity
politics
BY MIKE WISE“This field, this game — it’s a part of
our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that
once was good, and it could be again.
Oh, people will come, Ray. People will
most definitely come.”
— Terence Mann
in “Field of Dreams”N
o, they won’t come, Ray. A
global pandemic has reduced
the Grand Old Game’s roman-
ticists to cardboard cutouts
behind home plate. Don’t keep the
field or play, either; the liability is too
great. You’ll get sued.
Wear your mask, Ray. Maintain so-
cial distance of about an Iowa corn-
field from the Miami Marlins. And get
over any misguided notion that a re-
turn to baseball — and, indeed, to all
sports — is essential for our collective
mental health right now.
We want sports. We don’t need
them.
Major League Baseball won the
warped race among the four
m ajor-revenue North American sports
to see which could kick-start its season
first, thereby earning a greater share of
viewers longing not so much for their
past but anything beyond coronavirus
gloom. And for its sincere efforts to
enforce protocol and play amid a pan-
demic, baseball has won... scorn and
scrutiny.
Five days into MLB’s dead-sprint of
a 60-game, 66-day season, more than a
third of an entire roster tested positive
for the novel coronavirus. As of Thurs-
day, 19 players and coaches from the
Marlins are on the injured list for a
virus with no known cure.
“Part of the reason I’m at home right
now is because [players’] health wasn’tbeing put first,” tweeted Los Angeles
Dodgers left-hander David Price. “I
can see that hasn’t changed.”
Rob Manfred, the MLB commis-
sioner, kept going on about “protocols”
on television, insisting the Marlins’
outbreak did not rise to the level of a
“nightmare” scenario.
If being unable to field a team isn’t a
nightmare scenario, if claiming so
many players on waivers and bringing
up multiple minor leaguers and ruin-
ing the integrity of the competition
isn’t a nightmare scenario, what is?
What about a player infecting an
older manager, who ends up on a
ventilator and dies?
Never have we lost our minds more
about sports’ purpose in our lives.
You want to enforce a protocol?
Enough already. Come back after our
kids can safely walk into their
h omerooms.
The race won by baseball would
have been an admirable one had the
players been epidemiologists from dif-
ferent countries and pharmaceutical
companies, all working ungodly hours
to come up with a coronavirus vaccine.
But they’re not. They’re sports.
They’re owners, coaches and ath-
letes trying to recover deep financial
losses already sustained by the halting
and postponing of their seasons.
They’re enabled by their billions in
network television partnerships and
fans who have seen the civic unity a
special team can bring to a town or a
nation and wrongly believe this is the
same.
Trust me — it’s not.
I attended games at old Yankee Sta-
dium post-9/11. From Derek Jeter on
down, that organization understood
when to stand down and when to stand
up and reflect the communal hope oftheir city and country. So did the New
Orleans Saints, post-Katrina, who took
all of hurricane-ravaged Louisiana on
a magic carpet ride.
But the games now aren’t an exit
ramp from the doom of the day, that
needed sanctuary for our overbur-
dened minds. With each empty sta-
dium and arena, each mask-wearing
interviewer boasting about no positive
coronavirus tests inside the “NBA bub-
ble,” each Los Angeles Rams player
pushing the foot pedal of the team’s
Gatorade cooler because he’s not al-
lowed to touch it, sports reinforces the
abnormality of our asterisk-filled 2020
world.
Baseball and the Marlins aren’t a
metaphor for resilience; they mirror a
state unable to breathe. Florida shot
past 6,000 fatalities this week, posting
its highest rate of new cases since the
pandemic began.
There is a fire raging outside our
clubhouses, locker rooms and fields of
play. It’s called covid-19. It’s undefeat-
ed and has no network TV contract. It
wants only to attack as many of our
immune systems as it can. This is not a
time for games.
This is a time to get our house in
order. It’s a time to push for desperate
unemployed Americans to keep receiv-
ing a $600 coronavirus stipend. Before
we worry about the Miami Marlins
receiving negative test results, we first
need to be covid-19-free as a country.
We need herd immunity, all right —
from believing we can’t go on without
the games.
The hard truth: Sports need us
more than we need them right now.Mike Wise, a former Post sports columnist,
is an author and the host of “The Mike Wise
Show.”The message of the Marlins:
Don’t play ball
CHRIS SZAGOLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A foul ball that was hit into the empty seats o f Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park during a game between the
Phillies and the Miami Marlins on Sunday.on service and efficiency boosted the top
and bottom lines. In 1986, the food
conglomerate charged him with rescu-
ing its floundering Godfather’s Pizza
operation.
Cain and a partner later bought the
pizza chain from Pillsbury. It was a
remarkable achievement for the son of a
rich man’s chauffeur from Jim Crow
Georgia. Still in his early 40s, Cain had
reached the top of a company whose
brand was a household name. The
shame is that too few African Americans
moved up the corporate ladder behind
him. A recent study reported that, even
now, only 3.2 percent of senior leaders of
large American corporations are Black.
The second phase of Cain’s career — asa small-government, low-tax public pol-
icy maven — began with his service on
the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Kansas City, then accelerated when he
was elected president of the National
Restaurant Association. Cain energized
the sleepy trade association by helping
to lead opposition to the Clinton admin-
istration’s proposed overhaul of the
health-care industry. That work caught
the attention of Jack Kemp, an apostle of
fiscal conservativism — and also a for-
mer NFL quarterback and member of
Congress — who invited Cain to join a
commission on tax reform.
“The Colin Powell of American capi-
talism,” Kemp dubbed his friend. Cain’s
work at the restaurant association and
on the Kemp Commission made him
prominent among Washington lobby-
ists; it was also the part of his life that
produced several accusations of sexual
harassment. And those ultimately torpe-
doed Cain’s long-shot 2012 campaign for
the Republican presidential nomina-
tion, just as he was picking up unexpect-
ed momentum. Many White voters were
intrigued by Cain’s success in business
and his simplified tax plan — “the
9-9-9 Plan,” featuring a lower income tax
and a new federal sales tax. But with
only about 6 percent of Black Americans
identifying as Republicans in 2012, and
the Black cultural elite overwhelmingly
liberal, Cain lacked a base of support on
which to build.
As a survivor of aggressive colon
cancer, Cain might have paid more
attention to public health warnings
about the novel coronavirus. But there
he was last month in Tulsa, at a rally for
President Trump, his smile visible, his
mask nowhere to be seen. Perhaps by
then, going against the grain was so
deeply etched that it had become a
self-defeating habit. That he was able to
make his own way on his own terms,
however, was a legacy worth leaving.
[email protected]BY DAVID VON DREHLEH
erman Cain, a businessman
turned politician turned com-
mentator, was a pioneer, a lead-
ing member of the bridge gen-
eration of African Americans who
brought the nation out of legally sanc-
tioned segregation. He also belonged to
the much smaller cohort of politically
conservative African Americans, lonely
ground he shared with such figures as
economist Thomas Sowell and Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In this,
Cain represented a civil right sometimes
neglected in the national discourse: the
right of Black Americans to intellectual
diversity.
Cain died on Thursday at an Atlanta-
area hospital of complications caused by
covid-19. He was 74.
In Cain’s case, the bridge he built led
from his father’s version of corporate
success to something more like equality.
In segregated Atlanta, Black achieve-
ment was often measured by the pres-
tige of the people one served. Luther
Cain, during the 1960s and early 1970s,
served as full-time chauffeur to Robert
Woodruff, the head of Coca-Cola and
arguably the most powerful man in
town.
Driving Woodruff allowed the elder
Cain to send his whip-smart son to
Morehouse College, the all-male school
that — along with its all-female counter-
part, Spelman College — educated
A tlanta’s Black elite. Cain majored in
mathematics, then earned a master of
science degree from Purdue University
in the cutting-edge field of computers.
He graduated in 1971, just as corporate
America was halfheartedly integrating.
With the mind of a numbers-cruncher
and the personality of a salesman, Cain
made the most of the new opportunities.
At Pillsbury, in his early 30s, he earned
responsibility over some 400 restau-
rants in the Burger King chain. His focusAPPRECIATIONHe made his own way, on his own terms
JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
Herman Cain in 2012.