Diamond & Silk Attack Dems’ Treatment of Black Voters: They ‘Don’t Need Reparations, They Need Liberation’

Commentators Diamond and Silk, who offer a conservative counterpoint to the liberal line followed by many black political leaders, slammed Democratic leaders Friday for focusing on the subject of reparations when it is not what black Americans need.

“Let me just tell you this here, when it comes to Democrats listening, they promise on everything and they deliver on nothing,” Diamond, whose real name is Lynnette Hardaway, said during a Friday appearance on the Fox News morning program “Fox & Friends.”

“Look at how they’re promising reparations, black people don’t need reparations, they need liberation from the Democrat Party,” she said.

In June, House Democrats held a hearing to discuss how reparations could be handled.

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“I don’t think we should rule out cutting checks. There are people who deserve checks,” writer Ta-Nehisi Coates said at the hearing, according to CNN. Coates, who has advocated reparations since at least 2014,  said the early U.S. economy relied upon slavery, which supported “torture, rape and child trafficking.”

On Friday, Diamond and Silk were weighing in on comments from basketball legend Charles Barkley, who said Wednesday that black voters are too often ignored.

“They’ve been taking black people’s votes — and they only talk to black people every four years. All of these politicians only talk to black people every four years because they want their vote,” Barkley said on Sirius XM, according to Mediaite.

In a June interview with TMZ, Barkley said he did not think reparations were logistically possible.

Diamond and Silk, meanwhile, believe the accomplishments of President Donald Trump demonstrate action in contrast to the lack of even trying from Democrats.

“When it comes to the Republican Party, we have a Republican president. He’s not all talk, he takes action,” Diamond said, referencing Trump’s efforts to help the black community by reviving the economy to help more black Americans get jobs, as well as Trump’s support of the FIRST STEP Act to help ex-convicts.

Black unemployment in August was 5.5 percent, far below the 8.1 percent figure from the end of 2016 before Trump was inaugurated.  Trump said in April that the FIRST STEP Act was already helping more than 16,000 inmates.

“Republicans don’t have to pander, because they deliver … our Republican president … is delivering,” Diamond said.

Silk, whose real name is Rochelle Richardson, voiced the wish that black people would have a “come to Jesus moment” and “realize that the Democrat Party mean black people no good.”

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Silk said Trump helps the black community by “leading by example.”

“The president is doing what he needs to do when it comes down to black people by showing people this is what you need for the black community,” she said.

“You need jobs so you can take care of your family,” Silk added. “Instead of talking about it, he’s ‘being about it,’  and that’s why black people are waking up to it.”

Silk differed with Barkley on the 2020 election, in which he has expressed a leaning toward Sound Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats seeking the party’s nomination.

She said she wants a candidate who works toward the “betterment of all Americans.”

“Anybody can support whoever they want to,” she said, “but I want to support someone that is doing something for all Americans, including black Americans.”

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