Kwame Kilpatrick is straightforward about supporting Donald Trump’s return to the White House and why it isn’t terrifying as a Black man in America.
“White people being racist is not a big issue for me,” he said. “My life doesn’t change because somebody white said something racist.”
Kilpatrick was known as America’s hip-hop mayor after being elected in 2001 as Detroit’s youngest leader at age 31. He was a charismatic star who quoted rap lyrics on the trail and sported a diamond-studded earring while challenging his party to be bold, speaking on stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
That was until various scandals plagued his administration, forced his resignation and landed him in prison on public corruption crimes.
The 54-year-old Kilpatrick, released 20 years early when Trump commuted his sentence in 2021, has a quick barbershop delivery that hasn’t rusted.
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But today his message is aimed at peeling away disaffected Black voters from President Joe Biden in the critical swing state of Michigan.
“It’s a difference between a white guy (Trump) who says something and a white guy (Biden) who does something,” Kilpatrick told USA Today in an interview Monday, referring to then Sen. Biden’s support for the controversial 1994 crime bill that led to a mass incarceration of Black men.
While running in 2019, Biden apologized for his role in the crime bill, and a
