Well, it’s that time when every four years, I try to think of something nice to say about an administration and/or party platform I don’t like. This time, I find myself having to strain my brain as to which one I disliked the most, and I’m coming up short.
The first thing that came to mind was that I should choose something easier to write about, so here it is.
As much as I don’t agree with the majority of the Trump family, I do believe that Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign was great ideology, but was disallowed by the public majority from being carried out in a meaningful manner.
I believe that “Be Best” didn’t work out because of these main reasons:
- Melania Trump did not want the role of First Lady to begin with and she was criticised harshly by the public majority because of it. By the time she began “Be Best”, it was already defeated before it could try to get off the ground for myriad of reasons; the majority of these reasons being misogynistic in nature by the public majority regardless of political views.
- Ableism towards her disabled child, Barron Trump. I think it’s safe to say that no one really knows if Melania Trump came up with “Be Best” independently, but the heart of her motivations seemed to come from people making hateful remarks and speculating about her disabled child as well as people coming up with fake social media accounts and putting his name on them. Her responses of pure disgust and raw anger were and still are appropriate motherly responses, yet how she responded was seemingly not good enough nor acceptable to the public majority regardless of political views.
- Her accent, her immigrant status, and other manifestations of xenophobia. Granted, she did make a lot of horrible mistakes because she is out of touch with how black and brown people are treated. But at the same time, she wasn’t the one making decisions about foreign policy or walls or Homeland Security. Regardless if you agree with her husband or not, there’s no denying that Melania Trump ended up receiving the brunt of the public backlash because of her husband’s views more than her own by the public majority regardless of political views.
While I understand that there are a world of differences between myself and Melania Trump, I can empathise with there only being so much a person can handle from expectations that should not have been mandated of her in the first place just because she happens to be married to the 45th President of the United States.
Melania Trump has consistently shown she is sincere with her “Be Best” message from its conception to present day. Arguably, “Be Best” had a lot vague points that missed the mark, but I’m still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that it might have been well-intended and widely successful if it were widely supported.
And while it is easy to jump to lines of thinking that begin with “if only she were an All-American white woman”, the more important thing that we as a society need to reflect upon is that everyone could have benefited from “Be Best”, which is the opposite of white saviouristic “be/do better” concepts that progressives use to bully people of colour with, if the public majority would have appreciated what “Be Best” entailed regardless of our political views.
In case you missed it, the majority of First Lady Melania Trump’s Farewell Message is “Be Best”:
Japheth Grimm 