Pardoning celebs like NBA YoungBoy doesn’t mean Trump is after the Black vote | Opinion
I like the rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, also known as NBA YoungBoy. Not in a recite-his-lyrics sense, but if I hear him at LA Fitness, his melodic delivery can carry me through a tough bench press.
And frankly, if you like rap music, he’s impossible to avoid. He’s a chart-topping platinum-selling — well, what are “platinum sales” in an era where everyone streams (read: rents) music? — artist, and he’s got a 28-city tour planned. So, the success and popularity is real.
When Donald Trump pardoned NBA YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, from his gun-related charges, some might imagine the president was trying to reach me. Trump’s clemency also included commuting the federal sentence of Larry Hoover, an aging Chicago gangster whom rappers like Drake, Chance the Rapper and Kanye West have long advocated for, further advancing the idea that he’s making for my demo. After all, I’m Black. I only yawned, like, four times at my last rap concert, which means I can still claim youth-adjacency until the grays take over.
I’d rather our country’s criminal legal system pursue alternative means of holding people accountable for serious misconduct than stuffing them in a prison cell. I’m glad YoungBoy is home. Rolling Stone’s Andre Gee, the strongest modern chronicler of the intersection of hip hop, politics and the potential for a rightward shift, described it as a “cheap appeal to Black voters.”
If Gee is right, this move was particularly destitute. For starters: Hoover still has to serve his state-level multiple life sentences. Though just a few months into his second term, Trump has sought to censor the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture’s frank chronicling of racial history and promised to “Strengthen and Unleash America’s Law Enforcement” by reducing measures for police accountability. (What was that NWA song? “Hug Tha Police”? Forgive me, I only heard the Kids Bop version.)
Who really wants a president who pardons the occasional Black celebrity but bans your ability to explain how they ended up behind bars and why you want them freed? This administration doesn’t merely demand cognitive dissonance; its contradictions are enshrined in law.
The Trump regime has attacked diversity initiatives at every chance, smearing efforts intended to increase Black (among other underrepresented groups) opportunity in business and education and defunding scientific inquiry intended to benefit Black people.
Which is why I’m unsure that I am in Trump’s target audience. I don’t believe he’s after my demographic of young, Black male rap fans eligible to vote, either. But, if you’re reading this and you don’t identify as a young minority, I think he’s going after you.
In February, I watched a right-wing PAC-sponsored Black History Month teaching event and left with a different education than they intended. Rather than hearing thoughtful analysis of Martin and Malcolm, Rosa and Fannie, Sojourner, Harriet and the intertwined legacies of Black scholars, politicians, activists, and entertainers of the past, I witnessed a Black man teach his mostly white audience how to persuade Black people to vote for Republicans. I wrote at the time that persuading Black people to adopt racially conservative politics was an “uphill battle.”
A few months passed, and I no longer believe that was the primary concern, the more important goal was validating and reinforcing the worldview of people who were already racial conservatives.
Trump’s onslaught of plainly discriminatory, violent policies might be the greatest threat to racial conservatism. Many of Trump’s anti-DEI pushes have loudly backfired — the administration was more or less shamed out of stripping Jackie Robinson’s military history from the Department of Defense. Retail giant Target’s compliance with the Trump administration provoked significant boycotts with plummeting earnings. The ugly, often illegal and frequently terrifying disappearances, including graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, Real Madrid superfan Jerce Reyes, and makeup artist Andry Hernandez Romero, is hardly winning friends to the movement.
Some Trump voters won’t care. As Tarrant County Republican chair Bo French loves to remind his X (formerly Twitter) followers, he voted for this! You might enjoy, for example, that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the father of three who was mistakenly deported still remains in a Salvadorian cell, despite the pleas of his wife and community. But maintaining such a stance probably puts you in the minority: a recent NYT/Sienna poll found that just 31% of Americans approve of how Trump handled Abrego’s case, and 51% overall disapprove of his approach to immigration, an issue that was once a winning part of the Trump campaign’s appeal to voters.
Which brings me back to understanding the political utility of pardoning YoungBoy or Hoover. (Or, from Trump’s first term, Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.) Positive press and a photo op around a Black celebrity isn’t recruitment so much as it rallies the troops, allowing those who desire a chance to rationalize what they’ve done.
Such stunts may pick up a few Black supporters. Not that many, but some. But whatever gains Trump may make with Black Americans pale in comparison to what it means symbolically for his base. Establishing his soft spot for the occasional Black celebrity indicates that maybe he’s not so bad. And if he’s an all-right guy, well, so are his voters.
This story was originally published May 31, 2025 at 5:28 AM with the headline "Pardoning celebs like NBA YoungBoy doesn’t mean Trump is after the Black vote | Opinion."
