Trump’s pardoning of Black celebrities is a cynical ploy

‘Why is Trump pardoning exactly the kind of people … whom he despises, and whom he would typically disparage and cast as a danger to American society?’ Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

This week, Donald Trump issued two dozen presidential pardons to a motley crew of wrongdoers, including shady politicians, fraudulent CEOs and other wealthy ne’er-do-wells. On that list were the Louisiana rapper NBA YoungBoy (whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden) and the Chicago gangster Larry Hoover.

Regardless of where you stand on American carceral culture and what we know about the ways the criminal justice system squashes Black people who have the misfortune of interacting with it, Trump handing out pardons to Hoover and Gaulden isn’t the magnanimous or justice-focused move he wants us to believe it is. Instead, it’s a clear effort to garner support from the Black community by way of its big names.