The Title Is a Tell

"Strong Black woman," you say? Uh-oh...

Strong Black woman Fani Willis ponders her next move

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Yesterday in a Substack Note I opined that existential is a radically abused term that should be rationed if not altogether banished from the lexicon of English. Surely Donald Trump can be denounced and reviled without resorting to a word whose definition is a mystery to most of those who use it. And today I come with a plea for the total abolition of another toxic term: strong Black woman.

Whenever some woman who happens to be of color beclowns herself with a display of stupidity, incompetence, mendacity, bigotry, or plain old bad behavior, the cadres of the Left rush to her defense, crying out that she’s being persecuted by mega-mooga-MAGA bigots and hateful agents of the White Supremacist Patriarchy, who cannot abide the spectacle of a strong Black woman.

Once upon a time this charge carried a whole lot of weight. No longer. Strong Black women are beclowning themselves in such numbers as to raise the suspicion that the title carries a price tag of fifty IQ points.

The latest example of this phenomenon is would-be Trump slayer and heroine of the Resistance Fani Willis, a Georgia state prosecutor, who cobbled together a ridiculous case against the former president by hijacking the state’s RICO law. She couldn’t make out a case of election interference, so she’s prosecuting Trump and a clutch of his minions for conspiracy to commit election fraud—a conspiracy with no underlying crime. But that’s not how Willis beclowned herself. One of the defense attorneys discovered that she’d turned the case into a cash cow for her and her boyfriend, Nathan Wade. Willis hired Wade as lead prosecutor on the case, paying him big bucks per billable hour. In return, he treated himself and his girlfriend to lavish trips and vacations. Lawyers do have a code of ethics, and this behavior appeared to cross the line

When the story broke, I asked myself how long it would take for Willis to be honored. And sure enough, in the twinkling of an eye she was designated as a strong Black woman being persecuted by the White Patriarchy, Judicial Branch.

The defense, of course, moved to have Willis removed from the case. The trial judge, a Democrat running for reelection this year, was clearly uncomfortable with that idea. But equally clearly, he was displeased by Willis’ behavior in his courtroom. She was combative, evasive and, eventually, mendacious on a key point: whether her affair with Wade had begun before or after she hired him. Copious evidence indicated the former, but when questioned about it, Willis simply lied.

The judge found a neat way to slither off the hook: He ruled (1) that the defense hadn’t met its burden but that (2) the appearance of impropriety was glaring, and therefore (3) either Willis or Wade would have to exit the case. (Wade bowed out.) And in a manner reminiscent of James Comey’s kneecapping of Hillary Clinton in 2016, he lambasted Willis in his ruling. Clever fellow! But he got no respect from the Democrat/progressive commentariat: You are not allowed to lambaste a strong Black woman.

Bottom line: Willis’ credibility is in tatters, she may well face sanctions or even disbarment for her unethical behavior, and her already shaky case against Trump is on life support. If it ever goes to trial, the defense will have a field day with this incompetent hack.

Speaking of incompetent hacks, before Willis there was Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University. Testifying before a congressional committee about Harvard’s deplorable record of antisemitism before and after October 7, she hemmed and hawed when asked whether calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and threats against “Zionists,” i.e. Jews, on campus violated Harvard’s speech code. It all depended, you see, on the context. The outcry was immediate, and progressivism’s corps of apologists couldn’t silence it. Then it became public knowledge that Gay, supposedly a distinguished scholar, had a very thin portfolio of published articles. And then we learned that Gay was guilty of plagiarism.

Bottom line: Another strong Black woman bit the dust. Gay resigned as president—or more likely was sacked. She’s still on the faculty and still drawing her princely salary, but everybody on campus knows that she’s mediocre, dishonest, and a phony.

The list goes on. There’s the Rightful Governor of Georgia, Staci Abrams, a strong Black woman who practiced election denialism before Trump took it up. Abrams ran for governor in 2018, losing to the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp. And she proved herself a sore loser, whining and crying that Kemp and the Republican had stolen the election. But never say die! Abrams tried again in 2022—losing to Kemp again, by an even wider margin. But to be fair, unlike Willis and Gay, who went down in flames, Abrams managed to execute a controlled flight into terrain.

Then there are strong black woman mayors of three important American cities: Muriel Bowser (Washington DC), London Breed (San Francisco), and Lori Lightfoot (Chicago). Bowser and Breed are still in office; Lightfoot lost her reelection bid, coming in third of nine candidates, therefore failing to qualify for the runoff election. All three of these strong Black women have presided over the decline—or the dystopian ruin—of their cities.

Lightfoot was especially disastrous. She seemed incapable of getting along with anyone and spent much of her time warring with the Chicago Police Department. In late 2019, Eddie T. Johnson announced that he intended to resign as police superintendent. Johnson and Lightfoot loathed one another and by way of farewell she fired the superintendent rather than allowing him to retire. In 2021, Lightfoot announced that only “reporters of color” would be granted interviews as she marked her two-year anniversary in office. All this and much more happened against a background of rampant crime, homelessness, failing schools, general urban decay. Few people mourned Lightfoot’s political demise, even though the guy who replaced her is an even bigger Bolshevik than she is.

Once more to be fair, I must add that recently Bowser and Breed have shown glimmers of common sense on the law-and-order front, supporting measures that might actually do some good. And apropos of nothing—London Breed. Now that’s a name worthy of a Bond villain!

And then there’s former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Her fall from grace was a gradual, then all at once, kind of thing. Back in 2015-16 she botched the Freddy Gray case with a truly impressive display of incompetence about which I’ve written elsewhere (see below). But Mosby remained in office until 2023, when she lost her bid for reelection—no doubt because in 2022, she was charged with two counts of mortgage fraud and two counts of perjury. Late last year Mosby was convicted on one of the fraud counts, and last month she was convicted on both perjury counts.

You will not be surprised to learn that during the Freddy Gray affair, Mosby was hailed as a strong Black woman.

Now of course there exist many black women in all walks of life who are poised and competent, sometimes impressively so. But in the Age of DEI, alas, the temptation to judge by the worst of the group is always there. And I’ll even confess to a touch of superstition: Could it be that the appellation strong Black woman carries a charge of negative energy, that it curses the recipient? Perhaps if she hadn’t been tagged with the title, Marilyn Mosby would be Governor of Maryland today. Unlikely, I know. But black women might be well advised to decline the honor if it’s proffered…

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