CNN political commentator and Morehouse professor Marc Lamont Hill deemed Black celebrities who met with President-elect Donald Trump “mediocre Negroes” because of their perceived lack of policy experience.
Hill made his controversial comments on the Jan. 16 edition of “CNN Tonight” in the wake of Trump’s Jan. 13 meeting with comedian and media personality Steve Harvey. The liberal commentator suggested that Harvey take along experts like Michelle Alexander, Michael Eric Dyson or Cornel West “who can challenge the president and inform the conversation.”
“To keep bringing comedians and actors and athletes to represent Black interests is demeaning, it’s disrespectful and it’s condescending,” he says. “Bring some people up there with some expertise, Donald Trump. Don’t just bring up people to entertain.”
As Hill spoke, Bruce Levell, executive director of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump and former GOP chair for Georgia, sighed in frustration. Levell asked Hill if he really knew what happened in the meeting between Harvey and Trump.
“I don’t see how anything I’ve said would prompt that question,” Hill responds. “Unless Steve Harvey turned into a policy analyst in the behind-the-scenes meeting, it doesn’t matter whether I was there. My concern is the people he’s trumpeting up and putting in front of the cameras.”
Despite Hill’s concerns about the qualifications of the people Trump spoke with, Levell insisted that Trump’s team, consisting of Pastor Darrell Scott, have reached out to a diverse coalition of people.
Hill thinks otherwise and he maintained that there is an ulterior motive behind Trump’s photo ops with Black celebs.
“It was a bunch of mediocre Negroes being dragged in front of TV as a photo op for Donald Trump’s exploitative campaign against Black people,” Hill says. “And you [Levell] are the prime example of that.”
