It’s been four years since Cardi B first exploded onto our screens as a reality TV star on Love and Hip Hop, and two since her debut album, Invasion of Privacy, made her a global superstar. But you know what? It’s also been four years since she made her mark as a political spokesperson – endorsing Bernie Sanders for the 2016 general election. And yet, despite years of engaging in politics, she’s still scolded every time she joins the debate.
Last month, Cardi B made headlines when she sat down with Joe Biden (virtually) to talk police brutality, Covid-19 and the 2020 election. Predictably, the zoom interview published by Elle US got a lot of people talking about her role in politics and whether she's the best person to be interviewing a presidential candidate.
Most recently, she’s been embroiled in a Twitter debate with conservative author Candace Owens who sat down with fellow right wing pundit Ben Shapiro to denounce the interview calling Cardi ‘uneducated’, ‘dumb and illiterate’.
A Donald Trump supporter, Owens accused Cardi B of spewing lies about Trump and police brutality and claimed Biden thinks ‘Black people are stupid’ because he chose to sit down with an ‘illiterate rapper’.
Defending the interview, Cardi posted an IGTV video saying ‘It’s not a secret I use my platform to encourage people to vote. I love politics… Just like I can make millions of people pop their pussy… I can make millions of people go vote.’
But it’s not just the power of her platform that makes it so important Cardi has a voice in politics, it’s also because she speaks to millions that may not typically engage in the conversation for fear of being called ‘dumb’ by people like Owens.
'You’ve been antagonising me for years and you claim that you antagonise me because I stick my nose in politics,' Cardi continued. 'Because a woman like me that pays taxes, that lives in a country that continuously sees injustice has a fucking voice, that bothers you so much? Everybody can have a voice, are you going to come at a teenager that has a voice too?'
Whether you’re engaging with US, UK or global politics, it’s no secret that it’s confusing. From voting systems to how laws are made to what our political representatives actually do, it’s only when you truly dive into politics you realise that most commentators don’t have much of a clue either.
Politicians rely on us not understanding or engaging with politics to avoid hard questions.
Politics is filled with complex systems, only understandable by the few that work within them – the majority of whom come from privileged backgrounds with families that raised them to breathe politics, at schools that encouraged further learning of it. It’s a world complicated by jargon and flouncy language that politicians rely on us not understanding to avoid hard questions.
Ultimately, understanding politics completely and keeping up with the endless U-turns isn’t feasible for the average family that doesn’t have time to engage with the news constantly. When we’re not taught about political theory in school, nor ethics or social justice, it’s no surprise that engaging with it as adults would be a mean feat. It’s why so many are raised with the same political beliefs as their parents, or pay no mind to it until a government policy actually effects them (privilege incarnate).
Dubbing Cardi B ‘dumb and illiterate’ for using slang when she interviewed Biden or not being completely informed on the way complex political systems work is not just mean, it’s damaging. Just as her millions of fans might engage with government because of her, they could also see the treatment of her – every single time she talks about politics in the last four years – and feel even more apprehensive of getting involved.
Because it’s not easy, it’s not a simple ‘read one book’ and you’re done, understanding government, political theory, social justice and applying that to the real world of power-trip politicians and dodgy campaign tactics can be a lifelong exploration.
There’s no denying that people with huge platforms like Cardi’s should engage with political thought before coming down hard and fast on a viewpoint, but she also doesn’t need to be held to the same standard as politicians who dedicate their careers to this. That’s why we vote for other people to represent us, because those of us with non-government jobs can’t be experts in everything politics– we expect them to be it for us.
That's also why it's so great to see someone like her interviewing those very people, because she asks the questions the average person would want to in a way we all understand. She's not clouded by a need to appear the smartest person in the room, like those whose entire job it is to interview politicians might be, asking questions without fear or agenda. Even if she isn't as informed as a political interviewer might be when it comes to challenging a candidate, she performs one of many useful jobs in getting people involved in politics just by asking questions.
Whether they vote like her or not, Cardi B is encouraging her fans to think critically.
Cardi encourages those of us who aren’t born into posh families that discuss foreign policy round the dinner table to actually think critically about people in power, and to condemn her for speaking up about her own political journey is not just unfair on her but on people like her. Let the politicians, the political journalists, the NGOs be the experts while Cardi represents the rest of the world who are still trying to get to grips with what it means to make change in politics.
Maybe her fans will vote like her because she tells them to, maybe they won’t, but either way they’ll be thinking about politics more – and that’s exactly what we should be encouraging all people to do.
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