Kentucky Governor: Black Kids Playing Chess 'Not Something You Would've Thought of' in Black Part of Town

Michael Harriot

Apparently, astounded that all black children don’t spend their time shooting hoops or exploring new avenues of committing black-on-black crime, the governor of Kentucky regurgitated a small amount of previously digested racism when he declared how surprised he was that black kids could play chess.

On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin visited Nativity Academy at St. Boniface, a Louisville, Ky., middle school that is 86 percent black and only 1 percent white. Before entering, Gov. Bevin recorded a brief introduction for his Twitter followers.

“I’m about to go in and meet the members of the West Louisville Chess Club,” he explained. “Not necessarily something you would’ve thought of when you think of this section of town.”

The video montage, appropriately set to Appalachian banjo riffs, shows Bevin actually standing next to the blacks and imploring teachers to “give them the chance to succeed, to pursue the American dream.”

https://twitter.com/GovMattBevin/status/1016714234095374337

While I could point out how Bevin doesn’t give a damn about black kids or their dreams being that he supports Donald Trump, the Tea Party, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, lowering the minimum wage, gun-toting teachers and the Blue Lives Matter law, I’d rather focus on a more important question:

What does Matt Bevin, and other white people expect from that “part of town?”

Well, The Root has obtained an exclusive copy of an internal memo circulated by the Bevin administration listing the top 10 things Gov. Bevin expects to see when he visits black schools:

10. Dance-offs: We’ve all seen the movies. When white people go to black schools, the first person they want to meet is the liberal, white woman who took a job at an inner-city school and saved the miniature negroes from a life of gangbanging by teaching them how to channel their anger and pain into the annual statewide dance competition usually dominated by nonblack students from the Becky Y. P. Pull Ballet Academy.


https://www.theroot.com/kentucky-governor-black-kids-playing-chess-not-somethi-1827515372?utm_source=theroot_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow