by Diamond
Hahaha. Yes. The altitude is so high, it threatens to cause nosebleeds.
Hahaha. It was so far to the top that everybody looked like little ants at the bottom. Even Donald Trump looked like a tiny image of himself, and he’s 6'3".
You just took the words out of my mouth. That’s exactly what I was about to say.
The advantage we had in this section was that we were able to see everything unfold. It was very exciting to be present at this debate and see it all go down.
Especially because we were new to politics. We may have heard about debates, we may have seen a little flash come across the news talking about a debate, but to actually sit there and be in that energy at that time, it was spectacular. That was an emotional moment that still stays with me because I never imagined myself having such an experience. We weren’t looking for that to happen, but it happened.
So right before the debate ended, Dan Scavino and another member of his team came over to greet us. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet candidate Donald J. Trump that night. We were all able to take photos, but not with the candidate.
We were not disappointed that we didn’t meet him that night. We were just excited to have the opportunity to be there and actually watch the debate happen.
To have the Trump team invite us to a debate that so many people probably wanted to attend, I’m still boggled by it all.
You know, I’ve learned some hard-fought lessons in my time, and I’ve learned not to try to make things happen. Just let them happen. Oftentimes, people want to force a flame to ignite. What happens when you force a flame is you end up with a forest fire that you can’t put out. Now it’s a mess.
Exactly right, a hot mess.
Always let things happen. That’s sort of a policy we live by, we pretty much always let it happen.
Let it happen, let it unfold, go with the flow. So that’s exactly what we did.
Right. Turns out it was the best thing because there were some things in the works that we didn’t know about, and eventually we were going to meet our man.
Chapter 9 Your Haters Make You Greater
So after the experience at the Wisconsin debate, we came home and made a video talking about what a great experience it was to see the debates and watch candidate Donald Trump dominate. Because that’s all he did, dominate the stage.
Dominate, yes, he did.
Less than a month later, we found out that candidate Trump was going to be in North Carolina.
Right.
And there was no way he was going to be there without us being there.
No way.
So it was arranged for us to be right there in Raleigh at the rally.
Mm-hmm. Raleigh, North Carolina.
Well, we live about two hours away from Raleigh, so we drove there the night before and stayed in a hotel because we didn’t want to contend with the traffic in Raleigh.
That’s right.
This was our very first rally, and we wanted to get there without any hassles.
Right. This was the very first rally that we’d been to with Donald Trump and our very first presidential rally.
That’s right. So we got to the hotel, we settled in, and we anxiously waited for the next morning. Now, the next day, I was all over the place. Y’all know Diamond doesn’t know how to contain herself, and I was walking back and forth because I was so excited about seeing candidate Donald J. Trump live.
Mm-hmm.
I was excited about meeting him because we had been stumping for him since June 2015. They were even calling us the Stump for Trump Girls.
Exactly. But while Diamond was all over the place, I was calm, cool, and collected.
Hahaha. We were trying to play it smart and get something to eat beforehand, and I was so excited about going to this rally that I really couldn’t even eat.
For me, I didn’t have a problem eating, including the cheesecake, hahaha.
Okay, so we got ourselves ready. I was still overanxious, but I was okay. Finally, a driver comes to pick us up from the hotel. He had us get in the back seat. No problem. I know that Rosa Parks may have had a problem sitting in the back of the bus, but we didn’t have a problem sitting in that back seat because Raleigh is huge.
That’s right.
So with all of that traffic, I was just happy I didn’t have to drive through it.
That’s right.
So they get us to the venue, and they rush us around back. I looked over at Silk, and I said, “Listen, I thought those days were over with. Why are we being driven around to the back? Why can’t we go in through the front door?” Little did I know, that’s what they do for famous people: they are taken to the back.
Mm-hmm.
We didn’t realize that we were famous. We felt completely normal. So a gentleman by the name of George came out and greeted us. George was the facilitator for most of the Trump rallies.
That’s right.
So he brought us inside and whisked us up to a room, and he put us inside of this room. Once we were in there, we were separated from the action, and I looked at Silk and said, “Why do we have to sit here in this room? We don’t have the plague.”
Well, little did we know that was the greenroom.
That’s right.
Well, they should have painted it green.
Hahaha. Sounds reasonable.
Finally, a member of the Trump team came and got us out of the room and he said, “Listen, I want you girls to stand right there because Donald Trump is going to be walking through those doors, and you’ll be able to take a picture with him.”
Yes, that’s right.
So I’m there all antsy in my little brown suit, just fidgeting back and forth. Guess who is calm, cool, and collected? Silk.
Yes. I was standing where I was asked to stand so that I could see this happen because, remember, in Wisconsin we didn’t get to meet him. So now they’ve got us standing in a place where we would get to see him come in the door.
Right. So, finally, y’all, the doors open. It was like, lights, camera, action.
Like at the Academy Awards.
All you hear are cameras flickering.
Yes. Click, click, click, click.
Lights were exploding around us, and in walks Donald J. Trump. It was like this man sucked all of the air and oxygen right out of the room.
Yes, it was just like that.
It was mesmerizing. He has this ability to shine, and he doesn’t try to. He wasn’t overexerting his power; he wasn’t acting arrogant; he was being himself; but people were mesmerized by his mere presence.
We’re watching this whole thing happen in front of us. So he did a few interviews, and then he stepped to the front of the line for those who wanted a picture with him.
Mm-hmm. People were everywhere, y’all, and he was snapping photo after photo. Finally, he just sort of looked into the crowd, and the first person he noticed was Silk.
Yes, he did.
So he used his left hand, and he pointed to her. Then he looked and saw me, and he said, “Get up here, get up here.”
Mm-hmm.
So now we’re in the front of this line, and we are about to take pictures with Donald J. Trump.
Wow.
First of all, he was so happy to see us. The first thing that he did was hug and kiss us.
He hugged me and kissed me on my right cheek.
Yeah. And this hug was a genuine, caring hug. The emotion that came from the hug was like we were family.
Yes. It was very affectionate.
This was the first time in our lives ever meeting Donald J. Trump.
Right. And his first time ever meeting us. It was like he was excited to see us, and we were excited to see him.
Mm-hmm.
So after we took pictures, we started having a conversation. The one thing I noticed that made me admire him even more was when he started talking to us, he immediately tuned everything else out. Lights are glaring at us, cameras were clicking nonst
op, people were everywhere, and he was paying attention to Diamond and Silk and our conversation.
Crooked Hillary didn’t win because she didn’t know how to pay attention. Maybe she was banking on that hot sauce, but that wasn’t going to do it. Candidate Donald J. Trump knew exactly how to pay attention.
That’s right.
He gave his undivided attention. He listened without being distracted. So, y’all, we shot the breeze with candidate Trump. We talked about what he was going to do for this country. We talked about how we wanted him to be president, how he was going to make a good president, and we were behind him all the way.
Yes. And he thanked us for supporting him. It was like this man was family. It was interesting how he interacted with everybody, but especially us because he only knew us from what he saw on our videos.
Right. It’s important for me to say this: no one made Diamond and Silk support candidate Trump. We heard what he was saying and decided for ourselves that he just made sense.
That’s right.
He actually learned about us through his wife. Trump told the story about how First Lady Melania saw us on a video and showed it to him. He was intrigued by it, and the rest is history. Any other stories that you might hear are hype. Stop believing it.
That’s right. Nothing but lies.
So we had our conversation, and they whisked us down to the auditorium and had us take our seats. So we’re sitting there, y’all, and when the crowd noticed us, they started yelling our names, “Diamond and Silk, Diamond and Silk!”
We were like, “How do these people know us?”
Yes. They started chanting it. I was blown away.
I was blown away too. I couldn’t believe how these people knew us. Now, remember, we left our houses the day before just like anyone else attending this rally. We lived normal lives. We didn’t know anything about being famous.
Well, we’re sitting there, and these very serious-looking men are surrounding us, and they wouldn’t let anybody get close to us. This is how brand new we were at all of this, y’all: I’m wondering what’s wrong with them. Why don’t they want anybody coming over here to talk to us? I didn’t realize that was security.
That’s right. Hahaha.
I thought they were trying to be funny.
Yes. Because people were actually coming to us, wanting to shake our hands, wanting to say hi, but these guys were blocking them. We were like, why are they doing that?
So now the rally had begun; candidate Donald J. Trump was onstage. At this particular rally, the audience members were able to ask him questions. So somebody turned to us and said, “Girls, do you want to ask him a question?”
We said, “Yeah, we want to ask him a question.” So we’re standing on the stairs next to the platform, ready to ask candidate Donald J. Trump a question. He turned around and saw it was us, and he says, “Get up here.”
Yes, that’s just how he said it.
So now he’s telling us to get up there on his stage.
That’s right.
Truth is, I wasn’t nervous at all. It was like I was meant for that moment.
That’s right.
So we went up onstage, and candidate Trump started telling his story about how he saw our videos. He said something that I know the world heard: “I hope you’ve monetized this.”
Yes. That’s what he said.
Now, in case you don’t know what monetizing means, it means to earn revenue from.
Mm-hmm.
So when candidate Trump said, “I hope you’ve monetized this,” he meant, “I hope you are earning revenue from what you are doing.”
That’s right.
A lot of times we get criticized by the Left because we monetize.
Mm-hmm.
If there are tools out there for you to monetize your platform, monetize your brand, I don’t see anything wrong with monetization. I don’t see anything wrong with candidate Trump, the billionaire, telling us, hey, “I hope you’ve monetized this.”
Yes. That’s right.
The Left tries to put millionaires down, calls them white racists. What about black millionaires? I believe Donald Trump would be the happiest if we all reached our fullest potential and became as rich as we could be. By the way, do you see the difference? The Left seems to want to emphasize our differences, keep it rich against poor, black against white, gay against straight. No. All Americans can rise to their full and happiest productivity.
So he wanted us to be successful—financially successful—even if we couldn’t even see the possibilities before us.
Exactly. And with him being a billionaire and making that statement to us—I thought it was awesome, and it reflected a sincere desire to see others prosper. Meaning, he doesn’t have a problem saying to you: Make it. I want you to be prosperous. I want prosperity to fall on you.
When you look at the fact that he said, “I see two of my friends in the audience, and they’ve become very famous and very rich,” he was speaking prosperity on us.
Prosperity and success. Just like Romans 4:17 says, he was “calling those things that were not as though they were.” And that’s how we felt in that moment.
You know, oftentimes, especially in the black community, the churches have taught us that there’s something wrong with having money; there’s something wrong with being prosperous.
Right.
If you’re doing anything half-assed, some in the black community and some left-leaning white liberals are happy with that. When you have your stuff together, your ducks are in a row, and everything is going accordingly, they criticize your progress.
They sure do.
And when this white man, who happened to be a billionaire, who didn’t know us from Adam or Eve, looked at us and said on national television, “I hope you’ve monetized this…”
In front of the whole world.
That says to us, “I’m not jealous; I’m not envious. I want you to be successful; I want you to be prosperous.”
Yes.
Let me repeat this truth: if you ever want to know what’s wrong with a body of people, check the head.
Mm-hmm.
If the head is successful, then the body of people are going to be successful.
So with candidate Trump telling us that, that let me know he wanted us to experience success, gain wealth, become prosperous, and be all that we could be. It wasn’t going to bother him; he’d just sit back and be tickled pink by it.
That was a great description. When I look within our communities, I see how ingrained the mentality is that it’s okay to be poor, broken, and in poverty. Many on the Left want to make sure we’re put back in that place. I wonder how we allowed a party to make us believe it’s okay to be less than.
Right. What people have to understand is that when the Democrat Party created and enforced the Jim Crow laws, the real objective was to intimidate, manipulate, keep the black population stuck, and stifle their reach.
Exactly right. It was a disgusting list of rules that suppressed the black communities. Systemic racism is what I call it. A system full of rules used to keep you down.
Then, to compensate for the crisis they created, the Democrats started giving away free food, free housing, and other “perks.”
Sound familiar?
Mm-hmm. This entrenched the American black man even further into dependency. Black men fell for the con that if they didn’t take what was free, their families would starve.
Now, all of this was orchestrated under the Democrat Party, and they sure wanted to keep it going. That’s why we call the Democrat Party the party of slavery.
Yes, we do.
They did not want it to end because they wanted to enslave people to do their work without paying them.
That’s right. They wanted free labor.
The way to get that free labor was through control, manipulation, and cruelty.
So when you really sit back and think about it, at the end of the day, do you want free stuf
f, or do you want freedom? Because if you remember, it was the Republican Party that freed the slaves.
What people don’t understand is, all of this was designed to keep the black man stuck. And now that I’m older and I’m looking at everything, it seems designed for the black man to have a poverty mentality, a low mindset—just barely getting by, no motivation to have more. Then the Democrats and the Left implement things in the community for black men’s mindsets to stay that way.
Now, that’s the truth.
They do what the slave masters did to our black ancestors: They got their slaves to appoint one black man as the leader of all, and then indoctrinated him with religion, telling him he had to serve and obey his master if he wanted to have a clean soul before God. Truth is, they didn’t give a damn about the black man’s soul; they just wanted to keep their slaves in line.
That’s right.
There was never indoctrination about being independent, prosperous, and successful—which are the true principles of God. If you look at the black leaders today, we have the same thing going on. In our opinion, black leaders like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Maxine Waters are rich and comfortable from the exploitation of their black constituents, who don’t have a damn thing.
Barely getting by. Living paycheck to paycheck.
Some on the Left got very upset with us because candidate Trump said, “I hope you’ve monetized this.”
Yes. They would even ask us questions about the statement he made about us being very rich, like it’s suspicious.
Exactly. Like there’s something wrong with black women being rich.
Well, if Madam C. J. Walker can invent hair products and become rich, then Diamond and Silk can become rich too. If Oprah Winfrey can go from being a millionaire to being a billionaire, then there is nothing wrong with Diamond and Silk becoming millionaires or billionaires too.
That’s right. Madam C. J. Walker made her fortune by developing and marketing a line of cosmetics and hair care products for black women.
Mm-hmm. The reason the Left has a problem with Diamond and Silk is that we don’t do what the Left wants us to do. They want to control what we do. I promise you this, if we had been onstage with a black man, he never would have said, “I hope you’ve monetized this.” He’d be telling us to get back in line.