You know, how there’s the one person at your job, at your church or in your sorority who you can’t stand, but you have to invite them to the cookout, because you invited everyone else to the cookout, and you don’t want to be the asshole?
Well, Reuters reports that in January, when the National Association of Colored People invited Donald Trump to their national conference they just assumed he was coming. After all, every President since Ronald Reagan has spoken at the national conference, so they kinda had to invite him, even though no one wanted him there. They even emblazoned a trash can with a presidential seal just in case Melania wanted to bring some potato salad to the 108-ear-old organization’s annual cookout conference.
Of course Trump didn’t RSVP (which, I must admit, is a move I thought I patented. Whenever I’m invited to an event I don’t want to attend, I just don’t go. If the host asks me why, I say “I forgot to RSVP.” You should try it. I do it for weddings, AKA parties and I once used it as an excuse to not attend a funeral. I must admit, my family looked at me funny when I told them I didn’t go to the funeral we had for my niece’s goldfish because I forgot to RSVP, but no one said anything. It must’ve been the grief).
Even though the Thousand Island-faced Colluder-in-Chief didn’t RSVP, even though Trump hasn’t adhered to a single Presidential norm since he moved into the oval office, even though every indication is that he’d rather dip a Phillips head precision screwdriver into a vomit and diarrhea smoothie and then stab himself directly in the retina than be around black people all day, the NAACP thought Great Value Putin was going to show up.
So, since Trump had previously asked April Ryan to “set up” a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus because… you know… they’re all black, she decided to ask Sarah Huckabee-Sanders if the POTUS planned on attending this year’s NAACP conference during one of the super-secret, untelevised White House press briefings where only hieroglyphics and braille can be used to take notes.
“My understanding is that the invitation has been declined for this year,” Huckabee blithely said.
Of course the NAACP was mad. What were they supposed to do with all that chicken they hadn’t seasoned? “It’s extremely unfortunate that during these pressing and urgent times, the President has chosen to turn his back on the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization – though I must admit, his refusal to attend our convention is not totally unexpected,” Leon Russell, Board Chairman of the NAACP said in a statement.
“As a nonpartisan civil rights organization, we’ve hosted President Obama, Clinton, Bush Jr., and Reagan, to name a few. This is a historic departure from past presidents’ engagements with the Association.”
Donald Trump also declined the invitations to speak at the 2016 NAACP national convention, even though it was in Cincinnati and he was just miles down the road in Cleveland all week at the Republican National Convention.
There is no truth to my uncle Junior’s charge that “Trump is just scared he’s gonna get his ass whipped on this spades table!”
Read the NAACP’s statement here.
Read Reuters story here.
