Why are Louis CK and Alec Baldwin claiming that black people are their most ardent

[TMC]

...supporters?

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...-color/574555/

“They tell you that when you get in trouble, you find out who your real friends are,” Louis CK reportedly said during his set Monday night at the Comedy Cellar. “It’s black people, it turns out. They’ll stick by you.” CK's comment comes weeks after Baldwin told The Hollywood Reporter, "ever since I played Trump, black people love me. They love me." According to Hannah Giorgis, "that both men, white and rich and powerful as they are, would name 'black people'—that hastily aggregated monolith—as their primary supporters amid heightened critical attention is curious, but perhaps not wholly surprising. Their comments partake of a long tradition. Trotting out the proverbial black friend as evidence of one’s open-mindedness or innocence in the face of controversy is hardly new...By allying themselves with black people, at least rhetorically, both Baldwin and CK attempt to access the symbolism of victimhood: The men seem to be cashing in on black people’s oppression in an attempt to paint the group’s approval as uniquely weighty. This is manipulative, disingenuous logic. Black people, even those who might feel sympathy toward either of the comedians, do not exist as rhetorical tools to be levied in the face of criticism. Whatever black supporters CK or Baldwin may have found in the wake of their perceived missteps are not shields to be thrown up when the men do not wish to face the ire of others—or tokens to be redeemed for cultural cachet. Solidarity is a reciprocal endeavor."