By The Hip Hop Democrat | February 26, 2026
One hundred and eight minutes. That’s how long Donald Trump stood in front of Congress on Monday night and told America that everything was fine. That we were in a “Golden Age.” That he had ended DEI, secured the border, and delivered prosperity. One hundred and eight minutes of a man painting a masterpiece over a burning house.
But the realest moment of the night lasted about five seconds.
As Trump walked to the lectern, 78-year-old Rep. Al Green of Houston, Texas stood up and held a sign that read: “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!”
He didn’t scream it. He didn’t throw anything. He just stood there, holding the truth in his hands while the most powerful man in the country walked past him. And what happened next tells you everything you need to know about where we are in 2026.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tried to yank the sign down. Sen. Markwayne Mullin lunged for it. Reps. Pat Fallon and John McGuire positioned themselves to block cameras. Then the Sergeant at Arms escorted Green out of the chamber while Republicans chanted “USA! USA!” like they had just won something.
A Black man held up a sign saying Black people are human. And the response from the party in power was to physically remove him.
Let that sit for a second.
The Sign Wasn’t Random. It Was a Receipt.
If you’re wondering why Al Green held that particular sign, rewind to February 5. That’s when Trump posted an AI-generated video on Truth Social depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, dancing to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The video stayed up for nearly 12 hours before it was deleted. Trump never apologized. When asked directly, he said “of course” he condemns the racist parts, but he has no plans to say sorry.
The White House first defended it as an “internet meme.” Then said a staffer posted it “erroneously.” Then Trump himself admitted he told someone to post it, but “probably nobody reviewed the end of it.” Three different stories in 48 hours. Pick whichever lie makes you comfortable.
Even Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and one of Trump’s most loyal allies, called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” When Tim Scott is calling you racist, the bar has been buried underground and you still managed to trip over it.
So Al Green showed up to the State of the Union and held the mirror. And they broke it.
“Judging from the expression on his face, he got the message,” Green told reporters afterward. “I wanted the president to see it, and he saw it, and I told him, Black people are not apes, and for him to do what he did was racist, and he knows it.”
When asked if he feared consequences (he was censured for a similar protest last year), Green didn’t flinch: “Dr. King did not allow the consequence to prevent him from going to Birmingham, and he went to jail. Rosa Parks did not allow the consequences to prevent her from taking a seat on the bus. That’s where we are now.”
That’s a 78-year-old man in a suit, standing on the shoulders of the movement, willing to take the hit. Meanwhile, where was the culture that claims to carry that same energy?
“You’re Killing Americans”
Green wasn’t the only one who refused to sit quietly. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib repeatedly shouted from their seats as Trump talked about protecting American citizens. Omar’s words cut through the chamber: “You have killed Americans.”
She wasn’t being hyperbolic. She was being specific.
On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, in Minneapolis. She had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good tried to “weaponize her vehicle” against officers. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who saw the video footage, had a different take: “I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit.” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara called her killing “predictable and preventable.”
Seventeen days later, on January 24, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Video shows Pretti standing in the street holding his phone, filming. Not aiming a weapon. Holding a phone. After being pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by multiple agents, one officer removed a gun from Pretti’s waistband and ran. A second later, shots were fired.
Pretti had a legal carry permit. He never drew his weapon. He was a nurse who served veterans.
Three hours after killing him, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement.” DHS Secretary Noem labeled him a “domestic terrorist.” Both claims were made without evidence and directly contradicted by multiple videos. Miller later admitted that the agents “may not have been following” protocol. Six federal prosecutors resigned in protest after the Justice Department shut down the FBI’s civil rights investigation into Renee Good’s killing.
NBC News reports that federal immigration officers have shot at least 14 people since September 2025, with at least four fatalities. At least five of those shot were U.S. citizens.
So when Omar shouted “You’re killing Americans,” that wasn’t a slogan. It was a body count.
The Numbers Behind the “Golden Age”
Trump spent 108 minutes bragging. Here’s what he left out.
Black unemployment has surged to 7.5%, the highest since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Congressional Black Caucus puts the figure even higher, at 8.3%. More than 300,000 Black women have lost their jobs. Trump’s own “Great, Big Beautiful Bill” was called a “Great, Big Lie” by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who pointed to rising housing costs, mass layoffs, stagnant wages, and crushing student debt breaking Black families.
Trump bragged about ending DEI, as if gutting programs designed to create pathways for underrepresented communities is an accomplishment. He pushed the SAVE America Act, which would require proof-of-citizenship voter ID, restrict mail-in voting, and give the federal government unprecedented access to state voter rolls. If you know the history, you know the playbook.
And the ACA enhanced subsidies that kept healthcare affordable? They expired on January 1. KFF estimates that premiums have more than doubled for marketplace enrollees. Early data shows about 1.5 million people have already dropped coverage. But sure. Golden Age.
Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus boycotted the address entirely. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, one of only two Black women in the U.S. Senate, said simply: “I will not dignify his actions with my presence.” CBC Chairwoman Yvette D. Clarke cited Trump’s “utter disrespect for the Black community.”
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic response from Colonial Williamsburg (the symbolism was not subtle) and laid it bare: “He lied, he scapegoated, he distracted.” She noted that Trump’s tariffs have cost American families more than $1,700 each, even after the Supreme Court struck them down four days earlier.
Where Was Hip-Hop? Holding Trump’s Hand.
Here’s where it gets personal for this platform.
The Hip Hop Democrat has been at the intersection of this culture and this politics for 18 years. We’ve watched hip-hop shape elections, shift narratives, and amplify the voices of people that the political establishment ignored. From “Fight the Power” to “Alright,” from voter registration drives at concerts to Jay-Z stumping on stage with Barack Obama, this culture has been the soundtrack of resistance.
So where is it now?
On January 28, less than a month before the State of the Union, Nicki Minaj stood at the Treasury Department’s Trump Accounts Summit, grabbed Donald Trump’s hand, and declared herself “probably the president’s No. 1 fan.” She said the criticism “motivates me to support him more.” Trump called her “the greatest and most successful female rapper in history” and said, “We did pretty well with your community,” apparently referring to Black people.
Read that last line again.
This is the same president who posted AI-generated imagery of the Obamas as apes. The same president whose immigration agents have shot 14 people since September. The same president who bragged about ending DEI during Black History Month. And Nicki Minaj is his No. 1 fan.
She’s not alone. Snoop Dogg and Nelly performed at Trump’s inauguration events. Kodak Black (who received clemency from Trump in 2021) and Fivio Foreign released “ONBOA47RD,” a full-blown Trump anthem that gives the president songwriting credit. Soulja Boy performed at the Crypto Ball. Waka Flocka showed up at an inauguration party hosted by a conservative influencer.
Rolling Stone published a piece titled “The Hip-Hop World Isn’t Resisting This Trump Administration” and observed that something “intuitively feels off about a genre rooted in Black expression offering so little in terms of resistance to the current administration.”
That’s the polite version. Here’s the HHD version: a culture built on telling the truth to power is now performing at power’s parties and calling it progress.
In 2020, after George Floyd, activism was front and center. Artists mobilized. The culture showed up. In 2026, with Black unemployment at pandemic levels, with American citizens being shot by federal agents in the streets of Minneapolis, with the president posting ape videos of the Obamas, the loudest thing coming from the hip-hop world is… a Gold Card photo op.
The Culture Question
Let’s be clear about something. Nobody is saying every rapper needs to be a political activist. Nobody is saying artists owe us their platforms. But hip-hop has always been more than entertainment. It was born from resistance. It grew up in communities that were over-policed, underfunded, and politically invisible. The genre didn’t just reflect those realities; it challenged them.
Public Enemy made “Fight the Power” in 1989. Tupac gave us “Changes” in 1998. Kendrick made “Alright” the protest anthem of a generation. YG made “FDT” (which, whatever you think of the song, was a clear cultural position). These weren’t just records. They were lines in the sand.
Now the sand is blowing, and nobody’s drawing lines. Instead, they’re collecting Gold Cards and Treasury Department invitations and pretending that proximity to power is the same thing as having it.
Meanwhile, a 78-year-old congressman is getting physically grabbed by Republican lawmakers for holding a sign that says Black people are human.
Meanwhile, a mother of three is dead in Minneapolis because she encountered an ICE agent after dropping her son at school.
Meanwhile, a nurse who served veterans is dead because he filmed federal agents with his phone and Stephen Miller called him a terrorist three hours later.
Meanwhile, 300,000 Black women lost their jobs, healthcare premiums doubled, and the president declared a Golden Age.
The State of the Union was 108 minutes long. Al Green needed 5 seconds to say what mattered. Ilhan Omar needed four words. The Congressional Black Caucus needed zero minutes in that room to make their point by leaving it empty.
Hip-hop? Still waiting on a statement.
So What Now?
This isn’t a funeral for the culture. Hip-hop has survived worse than a bad political season. But this is a checkpoint. A moment to ask the hard question that The Hip Hop Democrat was built to ask: When the power needed fighting the most, who actually fought?
It was Al Green, 78 years old, holding a sign.
It was Ilhan Omar, shouting over the president of the United States.
It was Angela Alsobrooks, refusing to show up.
It was the NAACP, calling the lie a lie.
It was Renee Good’s family, demanding accountability.
It was Alex Pretti’s parents, calling the administration’s claims “reprehensible and disgusting.”
It was Bruce Springsteen, recording “Streets of Minneapolis” (yes, Bruce Springsteen showed up before most of rap did).
The question for the culture isn’t whether hip-hop can still be the voice. It’s whether it wants to be.
Because right now, the microphone is open. The beat is playing. And the people who need to hear something are listening.
The only question left is: Who’s going to say it?
