This article was curated by It’s That Part, where we highlight the truth in every fact—curated for deeper insight and critical reflection.
This week, journalist Joy Reid woke up to unexpected, unwarranted advice from United States Vice President J.D. Vance on X. On Thursday (Oct. 2), Vance shared some “honest, non-trolling” advice to the award-winning journalist in response to a clip of her and Ta-Nehisi Coates on a panel, where she discusses how her parents, who came from the Republic of Congo and Guyana, received the “rude awakening” of racism in this country.
“Joy Reid has had such a good life in this country. It’s been overwhelmingly kind and gracious to her. She is far wealthier than most. Yet she oozes with contempt,” Vance wrote. “My honest, non-trolling advice to Joy Reid is that you’d be a much happier person if you showed a little gratitude.”
Vance’s message, which felt like when a man randomly tells you to smile more (ladies, if you know, you know) came as a shock to Reid. So much so that the journalist was still processing the reality of how the conservative vice president’s message placed a target on her back for MAGA supporters to aim at.
“Waking up early and processing the reality that the vice president of the United States deliberately put a target on you for no reason, knowing how violent and crazy armed maga are, is something….,” she wrote in a series of posts on Threads Friday morning. “The fact that Trump and maga have turned nonwhite immigrants into hate objects available for abuse means that Vance pointing the finger at me as an “ungrateful immigrant’s” daughter is a direct threat. He is adding me to the demonized group the movement he has joined (which he used to call Hitlerian) fixates on.”
She added, “Well, I am proud to be the daughter of Black immigrants. Best thing my mama ever did was make me a Black American by coming to this country, even during the tail end of its apartheid era. And the current regime targeting, brutalizing, menacing and kidnapping nonwhite immigrants based on the color of their skin is pure evil. Period. If saying that is what triggered Captain Couch to target me, so be it. God is still God.”
Reid revealed on Substack that she learned about Vance’s “diss track” about her while on Substack Live with Tommy Christopher. And while she admits to having a “colorful” reaction to the news, Reid says, “if I’m being honest, I still don’t care all that much.”
“While I suppose it’s good news that Vance is dispensing advice to women beyond ‘quit your job, find a right-wing husband, have more babies and adopt fewer cats,’ as was his habit during the campaign, I have to admit I am surprised that the vice president of the United States has so much time on his hands that he’s scrolling old interviews of mine and posting on X-Twitter,” Reid continued in the article which should honestly be read over Nas’ “Ether” instrumental.
She added: “Just to be clear: I don’t feel the need to take advice, trolling or otherwise, from a man whose moral North Star is Curtis Yarvin. The idea that Black people owe ‘gratitude’ (to white people, presumably) when we succeed, is just the same old racist balderdash that we’re used to from the right.”
Now, this is not the first time Reid and Vance have feuded on social media. Last month, the vice president responded to Reid’s claim that he has benefited from affirmative action at universities.
“Maybe the way that JD Vance got into Yale is because they were tired of just letting in White men from New York, from all the elite schools, and they wanted an Appalachian White. That’s how that man got into Yale, I promise you,” she said in an interview with Don Lemon. To which Vance responded with an AI-edited image of himself with blue eyes, seemingly mocking her commentary.
Now, Vance’s advice column has launched during the government shutdown, which has furloughed hundreds of government employees. Considering the timing of this exchange, maybe Reid is right: “The vice president has too much time on his hands.”
