Pride News Canada's Leader In African Canadian & Caribbean News, Views & Lifestyle
By Yvonne Sam
Social and Political Commentator
While her book may not be news, her behavior certainly is. Omarose Manigault Newman, known popularly as Omarosa, is doing no great favour for Black Americans, or for that matter Blacks the world over.
The truth be told, she can do herself a personal favour, get hinged and quit while she’s slightly ahead. The former White House staff member, learnt from the best, as she once belonged to the lair of liars, and her recently released book “UNHINGED: An Insider’s Account of the Trump’s White House”, is written testimony of mastered skills.
The tell-all, mea culpa memoir paints a damning picture of President Donald J. Trump, his habitual use of anti-Black epithets, and claims the existence of tapes with him uttering the N-word as he filmed the reality series, The Apprentice, on which she was a serial contestant.
Omarosa, who was the highest-ranking African-American on the White House staff, revealed that while employed at the White House, she surreptitiously taped a number of conversations — with the president in the Oval Office; and the Chief of Staff in the Situation Room, one of the most secure rooms in the world, where the nation’s most closely-guarded secrets can be discussed.
One cannot resist commending the skill with which she masterminded the release of these tapes, so as to maximally damage the credibility of the White House, just as it was in the process of trying to abrogate hers.
Needless to say, such behavior in the White House will make her a pariah in conservative circles, while critics and legal experts, alike, denounced it as a huge breach of security. Since being fired from the White House, last December, Newman has strategically dropped a series of ominous hints about her time spent there.
The level of vitriol has increased as her tell all book is being promoted, with the author telling The Associated Press (AP) that the president is “a racist, a misogynist, a bigot.” No new discovery here, as the president’s personal history is, literally, a hedge of backward racial ideas, including the use of the term “birtherism” that heralded the commencement of his presidential campaign; his equating Mexicans with rapists, and later proclaiming that Judge Gonzalo Curiel, on account of his Hispanic heritage, should not have presided over the Trump University law suit; and his public racist remark on the Central Park Five deserving the death penalty, despite extensive DNA evidence exonerating them of guilt.
In his most not-so-recent assail, he questioned the intelligence of CNN host, Don Lemon, California Democratic Representative, Maxine Walters, and Lebron James—all of whom are black.
It is blatantly evident that the book, in itself, provides no new awakening, by giving first person affirmation that the president is really and truly what reasonable observers and the American public considers him to be — a racist.
Even if the book had been published, prior to the elections, the likelihood of it being a success, or purporting to be a benefit to Blacks would have been virtually nil. The president has been blessed with hard-core supporters, who have proven to be morally adaptable, and totally unconcerned about the multitude of his character failings.
The public already knows what it needs to know, or intractably believe, regarding the president’s competence, fitness, moral stance and character; hence no new revelation lies within any of the lines, chapters or verses.
Now on the outside, with all floodgates open, Manigault Newman is trying, via the book and black girl magic, to rally the black forces, in order to gain traction against Trump. Such a move calls for a closer look, as it should not be forgotten that she has been associated with Trump for more than a decade.
During an interview with Michael Strahan, of Good Morning America fame, following her firing from the White House, Omarosa said: “As the only African-American woman in this White House, as a senior staff and assistant to the president, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me, deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people.” sic. This is her first deployment of “my people”, almost as if it were an outrider of things to come.
Pics after pics show her standing, faithfully, by the side of the same president who she assuredly claims hurled insult after insult at Black people, and in addition, she was publicly silent as Trump again and again attacked the American citizenship of previous president, Barack Obama, insulted numerous minority groups and described some African nations as shithole countries.
At the 2011 White House Correspondents Association Dinner, where Trump then considering a run for the presidency, was mocked by Obama, Omarosa was reported as saying “Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him”, words coming from the lips of the very same individual who is leading us in the race towards being convinced that Trump is really a racist.
The marriage of Omarosa and Florida-based pastor, John Allen Newman, took place April 8, 2017 at the Old Post Pavilion in Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C., a stone’s throw from the White House.
Omarosa is indirectly assisting making America great again, except that she is trying to do it her way. She has followed in the footstep of her teacher. She achieved fame as a contestant on the show, The Apprentice, run by her mentor, where, with the adroitness of a Shakespearean villain, she lied, cheated, backstabbed, while ruthlessly advancing her own interests and sabotaging her rivals.
Such behavior certainly met the admiration of Trump, for he insisted on bringing her into the administration as a top-level adviser, even with her known utter lack of experience and qualifications.
In the book, Omarosa clearly infers that she joined Trump’s campaign — despite the reservations she said she had about her longtime friend and mentor — after an arrangement to join Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign fell through and left her feeling disregarded.
As the highest-profile African-American on the White House staff, she pushed back on accusations that Trump was racist. She writes that Trump and his campaign were “eager for my help” and she wanted to experience working on a campaign at a “high level.” And, “since Trump had little chance of winning, it would be ‘no harm, no foul’ for me to have worked with the campaign for however long it lasted”, she wrote.
Omarosa is playing out exactly who she was on The Apprentice, while Donald Trump is reaping exactly what he taught her to do. She is serving him in the same plate, in which he served her, hoping that he recognizes the utensil.
Meanwhile Blacks are in no way taken aback, as a clear message she did send – that she was merely fulfilling her own end. Trump’s poem about the snake once again has a familiar take.
Yvonne Sam, a retired Head Nurse and Secondary School Teacher, is Vice-president of the Guyana Cultural Association of Montreal. A regular columnist for over two decades with the Montreal Community Contact, her insightful and incursive articles on topics ranging from politics, human rights and immigration, to education and parenting have also appeared in the Huffington Post, Montreal Gazette, XPressbogg and Guyanese OnLine. She is also the recipient of the Governor General of Canada Caring Canadian Citizen Award.
