J. Pharoah Doss: The audacity of accepting Trump’s challenge

In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump asked Black Americans a simple question: “What do you have to lose?” Trump initially posed the question during a campaign stop in North Carolina. At his next speech in Michigan, Trump wanted Black voters to consider how much African-American communities have suffered under Democratic control. Trump cited poverty, high unemployment, failing educational institutions, and violent crime. Trump reiterated that, “If you keep voting for the same people, you will keep getting exactly the same result.” He cautioned that Democrats would choose to hire refugees over unemployed Black youths who had become refugees in their own country. Democrats condemned Trump for presuming that all Black communities were impoverished and claimed that Trump was hopelessly out of touch with Black voters. According to Pew Research, during the 2016 presidential election, Black voter turnout fell for the first time in 20 years. The 7-point drop from prior presidential elections was the most significant on record. Despite the dip in Black votes, Trump received 8% of the Black vote—the highest level of support for a Republican candidate since George W. Bush in 2000. Evidently, a few Black people, primarily men, accepted Trump’s challenge. During Trump’s administration, inflation...