While playing in Ice Cube’s Big 3 Basketball in Baltimore, Maryland over the weekend, Royce White sported “Trump 2024” written in magic black marker on his head.
While playing for team ‘Power’ the 6-8 forward donned the timely scribed promotion of the 45th former U.S. President days after Trump’s controversial debate against current U.S. President Joe Biden.
White tells Scoop B Radio that he believes that Donald Trump is the right candidate for the United States of America over Biden. “I think that Donald Trump would be the better presidential candidate,” said White.
“I don’t even think it’s close. But again that’s not the issue about the presidency. The issue is about the ideas. The idea that citizenship is of value should mean a lot to Black people. If you’re not a citizen then you should not have rights. Why would Black people want to trade our national rights, our constitutional rights for global rights?Are you a global citizen? Are you a citizen of the whole world? Hell no you’re not a citizen of the whole world! There is no such thing as global citizenship. Constitutional rights states that if you do not have a border, then you don’t have a country. If you do not have a country then you are not a citizen. If you’re not a citizen, then you can’t have rights. So the issue is that it comes down to fundamental things like that. It has nothing to do with and it has nothing to do with Biden or Trump personally, it’s about the ideas.”
White, 33, is the first black candidate for senator to be endorsed by either party in the state of Minnesota. The Houston Rockets’ 16th overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft and the state of Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball in 2009 is backed by more than 60% of Minnesota Republican convention delegates, which gave him the party’s endorsement ahead of the August 13 primary, where he is one of eight candidates. “We think that if the government is bigger it’s gonna protect us from White Supremacy, but how,” said White.
“If the government is inherently racist, right? I mean, that is the claim — you all remember when they said that the whole system was guilty. If you don’t remember that after George Floyd died in Minneapolis, I was out there in the streets, I was out there in the streets. I was organizing protests. We took 10,000 people to the Feds and what I heard was that the whole system was guilty. Well if the whole system is guilty then how can you vote to make that system bigger?”
White then turned his attention to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“If a system is inherently racist like we claim, rooted in White Supremacy, why do we want to make it bigger and why is it ‘certain’ white people,” he said.
“Like for example, Biden. He’s white. Kamala Harris’ husband? He’s white. All these folks are white but they get a pass from the racism that’s inherited? The white folks? I mean, I can’t believe that Black people believe that. They’re basically saying that if you don’t agree with our politics and our agenda, then you’re a racist. And that should be offensive to Black people.”
Born and raised in the Twin Cities, White was raised by a single mother and he believes that despite brushes with the law during his high school and college career which included theft, disorderly conduct and more, he can make a difference. “See, the thing about me is that I grew up in the hood,” he shared.
“I’m not one of these Negroes that grew up in the bourgeois suburbs. I just didn’t. I grew up in the neighborhood. A real neighborhood. I know people that’ve spent 18 years in the Feds or people who had trumped up indictments with evidence that wasn’t there and STILL got prosecuted; selectively due to all kinds of policies that came from the national level on down. See back where I’m from where I was growing up, the view was you can’t trust the judicial system and as soon as the Democrats get their agenda and pass it through, all of the sudden I’m supposed to trust that? It’s just a lie and we’re sick of the lies. That’s it.”
White bounced around the NBA between the Rockets and their G-League team Rio Grande Valley Vipers before finding his way to the Sacramento Kings. White has had a history of generalized anxiety disorder and had triggers relating to flying. Despite those setbacks he found professional basketball success in the National Basketball League in Canada where he became a two-time Champion, league MVP and scoring champion and later in the Big 3 and is now embarking in politics as a Republican. “Yeah, I’m done with the Democrats, we’re done with them,” said White.
“How much longer are Black folks are gonna vote Democrat and have them give you empty promises, you know? Is that right? How much longer? And for me you know it’s like if you keep promising something and your excuses are always They didn’t let us do it or the Republicans didn’t allow us to… they had three branches of government and the LGBTQ+ got all the policy first. The first time the Democrats had all three branches of government in recent history, the priority was the LGBTQ+. And that’s not really why we’re really done with the Democrats. That was just an insult. That was just salt in the open wound. But the reality is that Black people have been fooled.”
