Ashley Judd is a wacky person. She always has been. Some will defend her and say that she’s had a lot of tragedy in her life, and I understand that and sympathize. Some will say that she does good work behind the scenes, especially on the issue of human trafficking and girls’ rights. I understand that too. But I still maintain that there’s something not right with her. Well, Ashley Judd is yet another white person with “concerns” about President Joe Biden. Ashley loves a bandwagon, you see, and she saw how much attention George Clooney got for his horrid New York Times op-ed. Ashley is calling on President Biden to stand down, but not before she regales everyone with stories about her racist, Trump-supporting family and friends.
Wednesday evening, I was visiting, as we say in the South, with some of my beloved chosen and biological family. These folks are my roots, my sense of belonging, and meet many of my most intimate human needs. And some of them, remarkably, feverishly love Donald Trump. And I love these Trump folks as if my life depended on it, and at times, it literally has. I do not love the beliefs they believe and cling to.
And Wednesday, as I listened to one of my dearest people share some of those beliefs and thoughts, it hurt. I was shaken. My body felt like it was on fire. The words activated in me profound alarm in the aftermath of the recent debate at which President Joe Biden, a deeply decent man, was incapable of countering Trump, while he, unchecked, gushed a firehose of galling lies.
“Those people pouring over our border are less evolved than we are. They are naturally less intelligent. They have criminal natures. They are incapable of respecting the rule of law and order.”
“Men must be strong. They cannot be weak.” We were talking about the wish for boys and men to experience a full range of human emotions without shame or punishment. “It is dog-eat-dog and men will get eaten if they show any weakness. China has a massive, 2-million-man army. They aren’t teaching DEI. Good men must be willing to kill at any moment, but just know how to control that impulse.”
And Trump folks can act on those beliefs. Another one of my closest people, upon arriving at our local mall, came across Black youth hanging out, laughing, sitting on the hoods of cars. She went inside the mall to notify the security person on duty that Black kids were menacingly loafing and up to no good. The security person called the police.
I do not necessarily think all Trump supporters believe, feel, act and speak like this. I know Donald Trump himself does. That is critical. That is why I have come to realize that my private, personal belief is one I should no longer just keep to myself.
And so, I now ask President Joe Biden to step aside.
I’m laughing to keep from crying, but I’m also just laughing because holy sh-t, was Ashley Judd drinking when she wrote this? Imagine regaling everyone with stories about how you surround yourself with ignorant bigots, hateful racists and morons and after amplifying their bigotry and hate in USA Today, you then say: and that’s why President Biden needs to go!! If Ashley Judd’s nearest and dearest have an issue with “teaching DEI,” the answer is probably not turning the Black & Indian vice president into the Democratic nominee (I doubt that’s what Ashley wants either, funny!) Sidenote: the DEI-as-racist-dog-whistle thing has been really recent, right? It feels like it just happened this year, like it was in a Ku Klux Klan memo, that “DEI” should be used in place of a racist slur.
Anyway, this Judd op-ed ended up being pretty informative about Ashley Judd and not President Biden. Ashley Judd really hangs out with people who call the cops on Black children at the mall? That’s not a dealbreaker for her? That’s an Ashley Judd problem, not a Biden problem.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.