Michelle Obama should feel honoured, apparently.
Do you know what the greatest compliment you can give a woman is? It’s not telling her she’s smart or kind or funny. No, it’s calling her a man. After all, what could be better than being a man?
These words of wisdom are brought to you by, you guessed it, a man. At last week’s UFC event on the White House lawn, the heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit yelled into the microphone: “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”
His outburst drew mixed reactions. The crowd was largely quiet, but there were some laughs and boos. CNN reported that “in a brief moment captured on camera, Donald Trump … appeared to show a half-smile seconds after the false remark, which has previously circulated online”.
This week, Hokit decided to explain himself. It turns out he wasn’t engaging in “misogynoir”, Moya Bailey’s term for the anti-Black, racist misogyny that Black women experience. Not at all. During an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, Hokit said he thought he was giving the former first lady “a compliment”. The silly woman should have been grateful! Hokit explained: “Michelle Obama being a man, that’s like, uh, she knows how to deal with adversity, know, she knows how to work hard like a man. You know, when the times get tough, you know, the tough keep going.”
I’m sure Hokit has suffered a few head injuries during his fighting career, but it seems even he might have realised how ridiculous that sounded. After host Ariel Helwani pushed back on this excuse, asking why Hokit had even brought Obama up, the fighter pivoted to talking about free speech.
“I thought it was a perfect opportunity to, you know, show the world how great this country is with the freedom of speech. You know you go somewhere [else in the world], and you say something like that, and you die.” He went on: “There’s a certain side that pokes at another side, and there’s no outrage there, and so I thought it was a perfect time to take a jab.” Anyway, Hokit added, he said what he said, and he doesn’t regret it.
Let’s not write off this incident as just another stupid man saying yet another stupid thing in a country that seems to grow stupider by the day. The fact that the president has so far refused to denounce Hokit’s comments shows the extent to which misogyny and racism have been mainstreamed by the White House. Why would anyone expect Trump to condemn Hokit’s comments when he built his entire political career from othering the Obamas and spreading racist conspiracy theories that Barack Obama was not born in the US? Why would anyone expect Trump to denounce Hokit when he himself posted (then later deleted) a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes earlier this year?
The UFC CEO, Dana White, I should note, has condemned Hokit’s comment. White, a close Trump ally, told Time: “I understand that the Obamas are public figures, but I’m completely against saying nasty and false things about people’s families.” He added, “Everyone knows my position on free speech, but I hate this kind of nonsense.”
White’s statement was better than nothing, but it still falls short. This wasn’t just a nasty jab at a public figure; it was an example of the way in which society masculinises Black women. Serena Williams, for example, has addressed online conspiracy theories that she was born a man. So has the basketball player Brittney Griner. Recently, the Wicked actor Cynthia Erivo said she felt her “humanity had been bastardized” after the internet joked she was her co-star Ariana Grande’s “bodyguard”, following an incident in which Erivo helped fend off a fan who was trying to grab Grande.
“I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women,” Erivo told Variety. “[T]here was this assumption that I was bigger than my co-star and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.”
To paraphrase Hokit, I think this is a perfect opportunity to show the world how great the US is when it comes to freedom of speech. So let me say that Donald Trump is not the big, strong man he thinks he is. He is weak and pathetic; his only legacy will be corruption and mass immiseration. Am I right, America?
Why did Jimmy Fallon platform Conor McGregor?
In 2024, a jury in an Irish civil court found McGregor, a champion fighter, liable in a civil rape case brought by a brave woman called Nikita Hand. A year later, he lost an appeal trying to overturn the jury’s order. Still, while the courts may not have rehabilitated him, the media are helpfully whitewashing his image. McGregor appeared on The Tonight Show this week ahead of his 11 July fight in Las Vegas, his first in about five years. Fallon was all chummy-chummy with McGregor, saying the pair should go out for drinks and pointedly making zero mention of all the controversies surrounding McGregor. Fallon, to jog your memory, is the guy who ruffled Trump’s hair in 2016 and giggled.
Judge throws out Tate brothers’ legal bid to be told names of accusers
The manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate face a number of serious legal charges, including rape and human trafficking, in the UK. A judge just denied their attempt to unmask their accusers amid well-founded fears that the brothers would expose the women online and incite their followers against them.
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A US fighter pilot avoided trial in Britain after strangling an English woman
Capt Jacob Wulfson was accused of drugging, strangling and assaulting an academic while he was off duty in an English city. The Guardian looks at why he stood trial at a US airbase with an all-male jury of his fellow officers.
UN inquiry finds Israel continuing to commit genocide in Gaza by targeting children
According to the report, about 30% of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children. The report also notes that Israeli soldiers in Gaza have been “filming themselves destroying and mocking children’s toys”, raising “serious ethical, disciplinary, and legal concerns, symbolising the dehumanisation of Palestinian childhood itself”.
The hottest place to meet your husband is the Dull Men’s Club
This Guardian Experience story about how Lili met Luke in a Facebook Dull Men’s Club and bonded over spreadsheets was pleasantly mundane. Until, that is, Lili confessed that she asked her friend “who works for the US government” to do a background check on Dull Luke. Happily, his record was squeaky clean.
The week in pawtriarchy
Meet Merlín: a pet duck in a teeny little Mexico shirt who has become an unofficial mascot of the World Cup and a global celeb. (I don’t want to ruffle my employer’s feathers, but the Guardian has called Merlín the world’s sixth-most famous duck and I think that deserves a factcheck because I can only think of four more famous ducks.) Merlín has met the president of Mexico but despite his connections, he was not allowed into a stadium to watch the Mexico game this week because Fifa regulations prohibit ducks. I’m sure Merlín took it swimmingly. Give it some time and he’ll star in his own duckumentary.
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Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist