All About Laughs
Media personality Charlamagne Tha God has become one of the go-to voices in Black mainstream media. While his visibility grants him access to spaces that many aren’t allowed to, his opinion on issues do not represent everyone and he’s been called out on it before. With visibility comes criticism and he’s been at the edge of some of the sharpest that’s been seen – from Black women.
Charlamagne has become the default it seems when a familiar Black face is needed to provide commentary on the cable news channels. He’d previously gotten some attention when he appeared alongside Rev. Al Sharpton to talk about Black people’s relationship with the second Amendment, a topic which seems to be important to him.
Sitting in with MSNBC’s Weekends with Alex Witt, Charlamagne and Sharpton commented on the Arbery case. “If you see this tape, the tape came out Wednesday, I think, of this week — but he was killed February 23rd. Who saw the tape in the prosecutor’s office and felt that there was no probable cause to make an arrest for two months?” asked Sharpton, kicking off comments.
Witt then asked Charlamagne his thoughts, to which he responded, “I call them Vanilla ISIS,” Charlamagne continued, believing Arbery should have had his own protection. “I think, when you are a black person in America, owning a legal firearm is a form of self-care.”
While that particular stance wasn’t as controversial, it’s his embrace of other “anointed” media figures like Tomi Lahren, a particularly toxic conservative voice that has said some awful things about Black people in America, while under the Trump administration. Now, he’s under fire for comparing Lahren’s “voice” to the lack of voices among Black women – a fallacy.
A resurfaced tweet reflected the ire that Charlamagne Tha God received when he made this suggestion on social media of all places.
“Would be dope if a young black or Hispanic ‘WOKE’ woman used social media to create a Platform to be a voice like Tomi Lahren did,” tweeted the personality.
After a thorough lashing by Black Twitter and others, however, Charlamagne eventually apologized for his comments. “I just think it was a bad time to have that conversation,” he said to outlet The Grio, also claiming that he meant “strictly infrastructure.”
