I remember the first time I had a Black student obsessed with Trump. Her mother was a conservative politician and one of the first in my area to gush about the orange guy.
The next Black student was so full of self-hatred that his worship of Trump was expected.
Outside of that, I may have had a few Black students who supported him, but it was rare, and they weren’t loud about it. This year, I have several Black boys who love Trump and share this unsolicited passion whenever an opportunity arises.
During the first week of school, I took the freshmen to the library to become acquainted with the system and their resources. The librarian sets up a scavenger hunt, and we broke them into teams.
Each group chose a team name on their iPads. One team named themselves The Trumps. The librarian and I exchanged worried looks because we didn’t want to quell some political battle so early in the year.
I admit I was surprised to see the group was all Black. The librarian and I selected the bunch, but we had unknowingly put two Trump-loving boys together.
The two girls found the name annoying but not enough to fight it. One of the boys on that team really dug in on his love for the two-time president. He even claimed to have visited Agent Orange over the summer. Weird flex.
I recently heard a conversation between two bright, motivated students.
Student A: You like Trump?
Student B: Yeah.
Student A: Why?!
Student B: I know he is racist, but he doesn’t let girls play sports.
This needs context. This young Black man was slammed on his neck by a girl in wrestling practice earlier in the year, so perhaps he believes Trump is trying to stop all women from playing sports. Digging a bit deeper, perhaps he is ok with racism as long as it hurts trans people.
I do find this willingness to sacrifice his own comfort to hurt someone else to be true to politics. If we look at how poor white people have voted for decades, many tend to vote against their own interests.
It is easy to call these people stupid, but that isn’t necessarily the case. They understand what they are doing. There is this willingness to hurt oneself if it means hurting their enemy.
My student seems to be willing to hurt himself to hurt trans people, or, as he put it, girls playing sports. Lower-income white people are willing to hurt themselves to hurt the marginalized groups they dislike.
Thanksfully, I don’t think all of my Trump-loving Black boys are transphobic.
I have two other boys who love Trump and use him as their profile picture for all of their school accounts.
They are immature and mostly use politics to be edgy.
“Are you one of dem soft liberals?”
“Does my profile picture trigger you?”
These boys are also failing my class, despite being bright. They haven’t quite figured out how consequences work yet. Despite my warnings, the reality of failing won’t smack them until they are in summer school.
Likewise, they don’t understand the reality of a Trump presidency. They only care about attention and reactions.
I imagine the mainstream support from rappers likely makes the boys more comfortable in showing their support for Trump. The list of Black musical artists continues to grow, with Nicki Minaj most recently joining that list.
Most of them, of course, are Black men, and even though my students don’t listen to most of these artists, they are prominent figures. Everyone knows Snoop Dogg, even if you have no idea what "Gin & Juice" sounds like.
It is this prominence that creates the false narrative that Black men are turning to Trump. Still, it can’t be ignored that more Black people voted for Trump in 2024 than in 2016 or 2020, especially if we look at Black men. Around 21 percent of Black male voters voted for him.
This fresh support is mirrored in my classroom; however, we are still talking about a minuscule percentage of my Black students. Furthermore, I know people who regret their votes now that Trump is back in office doing…well…exactly what everyone said he would do…so I imagine his support among Black voters has declined since the 2024 election.
Overall, Trump’s approval rating has dropped among people who are paying attention. Of course, my 15-year-old boys are not. They are too busy bragging about their trips to a famous landmark, or losing in sports to girls, or triggering people with profile pictures.
It is okay, though. They will mature into adults who care about the cost of groceries.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of LG Ware's work on Medium.