Tokens get spent

OPINION: Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio as well as Black Trump supporters and employees Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti had to FAFO the hard way. 

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I used to work with this older Black woman named Miss Kay. Miss Kay was a praying grandmother. She was a church lady full of pith and vinegar who was quick to put people in their place. 

“Don’t let this Bible and prayer cloth fool you,” she used to say in the office lunchroom. “I’ll cut you to the white meat if I have to.”

Everybody believed Miss Kay, and no one went out of their way to try her, but on the few occasions when someone did, we all got a show. 

Miss Kay did not play. 

It was Miss Kay who gave me a sage piece of advice that I have carried with me ever since. 

When we got a new boss and people were rushing to suck up to her in hopes of gaining favor, Miss Kay sucked her teeth one day at lunch and said to a table full of young girls just like me, “Be careful of the asses you kiss. You might fuck around and find out you were kissing the wrong one.”

Y’all, Enrique Tarrio, Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti are living out that expression as I type this. 

In case you’ve missed the headlines, let me get you caught up real quick. 

Enrique Tarrio is an Afro-Cuban man who is a former leader of the Proud Boys. 

I would like to pause for a moment to unpack what I just said. 

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio is an Afro-Cuban man who looks Black, but that did not stop him from joining the Proud Boys, a group that — as noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center — describe themselves as a “Western Chauvinist” fraternal group that spreads messages of “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt.” 

The Proud Boys claim they are not connected to the racist “alt-right,” but within their ranks, they have members who “regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists.”

More from SPLC:

They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings such as the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped organize that event, which brought together a broad coalition of extremists including Neo-Nazis, antisemites and militias. Kessler was expelled from the group after the violence and near-universal condemnation of Charlottesville rallygoers.

Yeah, sounds pretty racist and bigoted to me. 

Tarrio played a role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that sought to overthrow the government in response to Donald Trump losing the 2020 presidential election. 

Tarrio was tried and convicted for “seditious conspiracy” among other things, and last week he was sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by 36 months of supervised release for his role in planning the attempted coup at the Capitol. 

The best part? Tarrio wasn’t even on the ground in D.C. when the attempted coup happened, and he got the harshest sentence in the planned attack. 

Oops. 

Guess he found out the hard way that they will make an example of your Black ass when it’s all said and done. 

Similarly, Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti are in the “find out” phase as well. Both are included in a federal indictment that accuses Donald Trump of planning a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the Georgia presidential election results in 2020. 

Floyd is the executive director of “Black Voices for Trump,” and he is accused of “violating the Georgia RICO Act, conspiring to solicit the publication of fraudulent statements and writings, and attempting to influence witnesses.”

Kutti is Kanye West’s former publicist who came on to work for Trump. She is the Black woman you see with the ridiculous grin in her mugshot. Seriously, sis, being involved with the decidedly and openly anti-Black Donald Trump is nothing to be cheesing and grinning about, but I digress. 

Kutti is accused of going to Georgia and attempting to influence the testimony of Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman, who was testifying before a grand jury regarding allegations of election fraud. 

Both Floyd and Kutti are accused of trying to solicit “false statements and writings” and “influencing witnesses.”

I wonder how their families feel. 

Is it the money? Is it the clout and fame? Is it internalized anti-Blackness?

I want to understand what would make a Black person openly jump over to the dark side when being Black and minding your own Black-ass business is right there. 

I would ask Candace Owens, but I have that goofy heffa permanently blocked.

I would ask Herman Cain, but he died for his stupidity. It’s worth mentioning that Reddit created an award in his “honor,” though: the Herman Cain Award.

The Herman Cain Award is bestowed upon anyone who openly rejects wearing masks and getting vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and later ends up either getting sick with COVID or dying from it. 

There is an entire subreddit dedicated to it, and it is a textbook study in schadenfreude.

I’m going to guess that type of schadenfreude is playing itself out for Tarrio, Harrison and Trevian right now. 

It’s Miss Kay, shaking her head, sucking her teeth, rolling her eyes, and saying, “See, I told you.”

Tokens get spent, and in this case, these Black tokens are paying the price for wanting to be part of a group that actively despises them but lets them in because in the eyes of that group, they represent some of the “good black folks” who are out there, and I made that particular “b” in Black lowercase on purpose. 

If you participate in these types of shenanigans, you get what you deserve, and no amount of me being unapologetically Black is going to make me feel for you. I ride for Black people all day long, but not those kinds of blacks. 

Those kinds of blacks are detrimental to us as a people. Those kinds of blacks are ops. Those kinds of blacks are the kinds of blacks who were used in COINTELPRO operations to bring down organizations that were working hard toward the betterment of Black people. 

Those kinds of blacks get what they deserve. 

Stick a quarter in your collective asses, you sorry blacks. 

You played yourselves. 

Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

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