These are frightening times, particularly for black professional women in America.

One day you are living large on six-figure salaries, the next you are out on your ear, deemed a DEI hire and now surplus to requirements.

Outspoken journalist and broadcaster Joy Reid, who hosted ‘The Reid Factor‘ on MSNBC, is now out, they say because of falling ratings.

Since Donald Trump swept the presidential election and the Republicans secured both the House and the Senate, CNN and MSNBC have seen their viewerships plummet.

In his first month as president, Donald Trump has made drastic changes to the way America operates. He has plunged a dagger into the heart of DEI and anyone deemed “woke” or a DEI hire has been told to “ get out”.

One could see how this ends for Joy Reid. She was a bit militant and a bit race-obsessed and that didn’t go down well. She didn’t see the writing on the wall.

MSNBC’s top brass has to do all they can to staunch the bleeding. Advertisers are  retreating and it must find a way to recalibrate. 

While CNN and MSNBC viewership tanks, Fox News, One America News (OAN) and NewsMax are seeing an uptick in both viewership and revenues as Americans rally behind Donald Trump.

Joy Reid was on a salary of US$3 million a year but that came down to US$1.5 million late last year, as ratings dramatically fell. She began her show ‘The Reid Out‘ in 2020 and was a foghorn for Black Lives Matter. She was stridently anti-Trump calling him a fascist and likening him to Adolf Hitler.

Some described her commentary as incendiary and unhinged and that her demeanour was “joyless”. 

Tiffany Cross, Alex Wagner and Jonathan Capehart have now been cut and this is seen as a body blow to liberal media. Alex Wagner is a very good broadcaster and will land on her feet. Though very liberal, she doesn’t come off as a firebrand. She has an amenable disposition and is smart.

Jonathan Capehart does occasionally go off the deep end and can be a bit race-obsessed. He is of the opinion that Kamala Harris lost the presidential election because she is black and female, discounting the major issues that coloured the November 2024 election.

This is a new era for America and DEI hiring is over. Some say unkindly that if Kamala Harris had won it would have been the ultimate DEI hire.

President Trump and his administration’s stance has put many minorities, particularly African-American women on notice—it’s not business as usual and you won’t be getting high-paying jobs because you happen to be black and a woman.

This is sending a shiver down the spines of those who thumbed their noses at ‘brothas” saying they were shiftless, unworthy, lazy and unproductive. They demanded the “666” and said that many men were incapable of being their partners.

Now they are crying.

After being fired, Joy Reid went on camera and cried.

“My show had value. What I was doing had value”, she sobbed.

Who cares?

The author of ‘The End of Everything‘ Victor Davis Hanson commented that the truth is for the last forty years, being a person of colour has been an advantage.

Plenty of people got jobs particularly government jobs because of DEI not because of talent and work ethic. That was the case in American media and also in corporate life. Now even big corporate titans have opted to do away with DEI. Dark days are closing in.

President Trump wants a more ‘merit-based society’ where productivity and success are the order of the day.

Many black women professionals have baulked against the dismantling of DEI and people being sent home promptly. They say it is unfair and unjust. There are those who say they are educated yet underpaid and that it is a disgrace. Black professional women always get the short end of the stick.

Then there are those who say white men have been downtrodden and are now paying the price for the long period of the “patriarchy” and all its attendant benefits. The white man’s burden is real and he now has to be marginalised, make way for DEI.

Trump doesn’t see it that way neither does most of America. There is a pushback against groups who profit from DEI.

Hispanics now make up 15 per cent of the American population and that is growing. They do not vociferously complain about injustice and being hard done by. Asian Americans are growing and many are highly educated and do not commit too many heinous and vicious crimes. They also do not cry about being victimised chasing to be stoic and get on with it.

These two groups although they do not enjoy as much as a presence as blacks in American media will in the decades to come surpass African-Americans residing in the US. Their presence and impact on the culture will grow.

The anger felt by many blacks who are now being pushed aside is echoed by former Barack Obama and Joe Biden appointee Ashley Allison who is now a panelist on CNN.

Addressing conservative Scott Jennings she said: “ We live in different realities. I know I don’t have the same opportunities as you and I know what’s up. I’m talking about me, a black woman in this country. I have a law degree, a Master’s and two bachelors. I have more education than all of you around this table and I have always been the least-paid person on payroll at every institution I’ve worked in

“Both I and my family have faced racial discrimination. I have been the least paid person and that’s a reality of the country we live in. I do believe I am qualified but the system that I live in doesn’t care about my qualifications.”

Jennings shot back, “ Your talent and work ethic is what anybody is asking for. You had a high-ranking position in the White House.”

She went on to say that black women are one of the most educated demographic groups in America but one of the least well-paid.

The resentment dominated the discussion and it will now be a big talking point with disaffected black women in the years to come.

The broadcaster Megyn Kelly made the point that is was another case of the angry black woman playing the victim. She went on to say that Allison was not ready to have her own show and that bosses may deem her inexperienced or too young and that her time was not now. Sounds reasonable. Sometimes you have to put away the race card and look to other factors. Sometimes you have to be patient. Sometimes you have to get along to go along. 

Joy Reid was too militant, too hateful, too one-dimensional.

Megyn Kelly is a good broadcaster and is making strides with her Sirius XM show. She is thrilled that Joy Reid got fired, calling her the most racist person on television. The way she sees it MSNBC finally had enough and pulled the plug on Reid in Black History Month—the irony!

Key took great delight in drawing attention to Reid’s poor viewership reporting that in the key “demo” 25-54 Reid only managed 59,000 viewers last Thursday. That’s terrible and would be concerning to the MSNBC executives.

President Trump for so long the target of Reid’s vitriolic barbs couldn’t help himself vengefully taking a bite out of her on Truth Social where he wrote: “Low life chairman of Comcast Brian Roberts, the owner of ratings-challenged NBC and MSDNC has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist Joy Reid.

“Based on her ratings which were virtually non-existent, she should have been “ canned” long ago along with everyone else who works there.

“Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show.”

Ouch! 

Was Joy Reid too hardcore, too strident, too in your face?

She responded “ Where I come down on that is I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those things because those things are of God.”

Now she’s gone with God’s speed.