Source: Justin Sullivan / Getty
The Atlanta barbershop owner who allowed his Buckhead shop to be used by Donald Trump and his loyal “Black friends,” Ben Carson and Rep. Byron Donalds, as a Trump campaign stop to woo Black voters in the most insulting way imaginable, is now claiming he didn’t know what he was signing up for, and he actually thought he was renting his barbershop out for a roundtable discussion for Black business owners.
Rocky Jones, owner of Rocky’s Barbershop, said he received a ton of backlash for hosting Trump’s sunken place friends, who put Trump on the phone so he could whitesplain to Black people about how his support in the Black community has “skyrocketed” due to his mugshot, which is racist nonsense he and his MAGA minions have been spreading since last year.
“I thought it was going to be something real private,” Jones told 11 Alive. “I’m thinking about Black businesses in Atlanta, small Black businesses in Atlanta. And I’m like, ‘Ok, so when are we gonna start talking about this?’”
As for Trump calling in to talk about how he has “the number one mugshot of all time,” Jones said that was also something he wasn’t expecting.
“I’m like, why is the ex-president calling somebody in my barbershop? This has nothing to do with small Black businesses,” he said.
For all of Trump’s talks about how much “the Blacks” love him, it turns out that Black people in Atlanta certainly do not based on the fact that, according to Jones, hosting the event caused him to receive a lot of angry phone calls and many of his loyal customers to stop coming to his shop.
“We had some calls Thursday. We definitely got some calls, some backlash, some angry people that don’t know me and I have to deal with that,” he said, adding that his barbershop isn’t even a place where politics are discussed, which is kind of wild since, in the Black community, the barbershop is one of those spaces where any and everything gets talked about.
“I have no involvement in politics. We don’t even talk politics in my barbershop. It’s all sports. The World Cup, soccer, baseball, basketball – politics is not what I do. I commend everybody to vote, but that’s your business. ‘You know, I don’t tell you what to do,’” he said.
Of course, Trump’s campaign is denying Jones didn’t know exactly what he signed up for.
“The business owner signed an agreement with the Trump campaign and received payment for the time spent in his location for this event,” the campaign posted on X along with what it claimed are screenshots of the contract.
On one hand, we all know that Trump and his campaign are a revolving door of easily disprovable lies, especially when it comes to every word they spew to and about Black people. On the other hand, it does seem implausible that Jones, the owner of the establishment, would be kept so in the dark about what his business would be used for that up until the day of the event, he thought the Trump rally he hosted was actually going to be a small gathering of Black business owners.
So, is Rocky Jones a victim of poli-tricks, or is he simply regretting his decision following the onslaught of backlash? You decide. See how social media is reacting below.
