Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Latest Posts

Why Do People Think Trump Is A Racist

Explore The June 2019 Issue

Biden and Trump speak on institutional racism in America

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

The Department of Justice brings the case and we name Fred Trump, the father, and Donald Trump, the son, and Donald hires Roy Cohn, of Army-McCarthy fame. Cohn turns around and sues us for $100 million. This was my first appearance as a lawyer in court. Cohn spoke for two hours, then the judge ruled from the bench that you cant sue the government for prosecuting you. The next week we took the depositions. My boss took Freds, and I got to take Donalds. He was exactly the way he is today. He said to me at one point during a coffee break, You know, you dont want to live with them either.

Everyone in the world has looked for that deposition. We cannot find it. Trump always acted like he was irritated to be there. He denied everything, and we went on with our case. We had the records with the C, and we had the testers, and you could see that everything was lily-white over there. Ultimately they settledthey signed a consent decree. They had to post all their apartments with the Urban League, advertise in the Amsterdam News, many other things. It was pretty strong.

john yinger: Trump had some interesting language after the settlement: He said that it did not require him to accept people on welfare, which was kind of beside the point.

elyse goldweber: Was he concerned about injustice? No. Never. This was an annoyance. We were little annoying people, and we wouldnt go away.

The Apprentice

How The Democrats Lost Touch On Trade

Anderson: I would push back on that a bit. What weâre seeing is the death of it operating so visibly. But when you look at the differentiation in wages, for instance, when you look at the differentiations in wealth, when you look at who took the hardest hit and rebounded the least after the Great Recession, whiteness carries incredible value in American society. But you get this language of equalityâI mean, this is why, to me, you get Abigail Fisher hollering that, because her father went to the University of Texas, she deserved to get in there. Now, the fact that she didnât get the grades to get in there is irrelevant. The fact that there were a number of African-Americans and Latinos who had higher grades and higher scores than she had who also werenât admitted is irrelevant. So, to me, itâs not the death of white supremacy. Itâs the death of the visibility of whiteness carrying such incredible economic and political value in the American system.

It makes it even more curious, actually, following the Great Recession, that African-Americans continue to make great strides in terms of falling mortality rates Hispanics have the best mortality rates of the three groups.

Deaton: Itâs true that black mortality rates are falling very rapidly, but theyâre still highest among the three groups.

American Growth Has Slowed Down Get Used To It

Case: Certainly the Trump campaign is feeding off that anger, but so was the Bernie Sanders campaign, right? I know from Nancyâs work that race and class are so tightly bound together in this country that you canât really talk about one without talking about the other. But I think that this, in particular, is about people who used to be able to get good jobs with a high school degree, or even less than a high school degree, and now with a high school degree you can work in any McDonaldâs you want to with no chance of on-the-job training, no chance of moving up. And I think those peopleâthe magnet of either Bernie Sanders, on one side, or Donald Trump, on the otherâjust took them by surprise. But I think itâs just a marker for how much despair there is out there.

Isenberg: Unless and until people begin to believe in their political parties again, weâre talking about working poor and poor people who have been entirely abandoned both by the Republicans and the Democrats, which is why they flocked to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. And unless they begin to see that the parties are working for them, Trumpism will be alive and well for a very long time.

Glenn Thrush:Obvious question, but an important one: Why do you think Donald Trumpâs tone resonates so much with white working-class people?

J.D. Vance: His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground. The no-bullshit tone, the anger â¦

Read Also: How Many Bankruptcies Does Trump Have

Criticism Of The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Program

In July 2020, Trump announced that he was considering the elimination of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, a program designed to address racial segregation in suburban areas. Shaun Donovan, the former secretary of the Housing and Urban Development department who is responsible for the creation of the policy, said that “Trump’s tweet is racist and wrong…” Some suggested that the comments by Trump were intended to shore up support among white suburban voters, noting that the day before this tweet Trump had posted a video of a white couple in front of their house angrily pointing guns at protesters.

Lincoln’s End Result Questionable

These journalists finally called Trump racist  ThinkProgress

In a June 12, 2020, interview with Fox News host Harris Faulkner, a black woman, Trump claimed to have done more for blacks than the 16th president Abraham Lincoln. Trump further suggested that although Lincoln “did good”, the end result was “always questionable” but when pressed admitted “So I’m going to take a pass on Abe.”

Recommended Reading: Will Donald Trump Get Reelected

The Justice Department Sued His Company Twice For Not Renting To Black People

When Trump was serving as the president of his familys real estate company, the Trump Management Corporation, in 1973, the Justice Department sued the company for alleged racial discrimination against black people looking to rent apartments in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The lawsuit charged that the company quoted different rental terms and conditions to black rental candidates than it did with white candidates, and that the company lied to black applicants about apartments not being available. Trump called those accusations absolutely ridiculous and sued the Justice Department for $100 million in damages for defamation.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the Trump Management Corporation settled the original lawsuit two years later and promised not to discriminate against black people, Puerto Ricans or other minorities. Trump also agreed to send weekly vacancy lists for his 15,000 apartments to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and to allow the NYUL to present qualified applicants for vacancies in certain Trump properties.

Just three years after that, the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation again for allegedly discriminating against black applicants by telling them apartments werent available.

Defenses Of Donald Trump

Trump has repeatedly denied claims that he is racist, often stating that he is “the least racist person”. Various friends, members of his administration and people who have known him, including some black Americans, have stated that Trump is not racist.Ben Carson explained his evidence for this belief, stating “When he bought Mar-a-Lago, he was the one who fought for Jews and blacks to be included in the clubs that were trying to exclude them. You know, people say he’s a racist, he is not a racist.” At the 2020 Republican National Convention, Herschel Walker, a close friend of Trump’s for 37 years, defended him from charges of racism, saying “Growing up in the Deep South I’ve seen racism up close. I know what it is, and it isn’t Donald Trump.”

Though perceived as anti-immigrant, Trump is himself the son of an immigrant mother and has twice married wives who were immigrants. He has often celebrated his immigrant heritage. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump defended himself against accusations that his immigration policies were racist, stating “I will never apologize for pledging to enforce and uphold every single law of the United States, and to make my immigration priority defending and protecting American citizens above every other single consideration.”

Recommended Reading: Why Is Trump Such A Jerk

When The Looting Starts The Shooting Starts

In May 2020, Trump was accused of racism for tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” and stating of the looters “these thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd” in response to a third night of arson and rioting in Minneapolis, during which the Minneapolis Third Precinct police station was set on fire by rioters, over the police killing of the unarmed black man. The phrase had been used previously in 1967 by a Miami police chief, Walter E. Headley, that was widely condemned by civil rights groups and repeated in 1968 during the presidential campaign of segregationist George Wallace.

As protests continued, Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser criticised Trump for stating that protesters who climbed over the White House fence would be met by “the most vicious dogs and ominous of weapons”, saying it was “no subtle reminder to African-Americans of segregationists that let dogs out on women, children and innocent people in the South”.

Central Park Jogger Case

âWords matterâ?: Asian Americans Confront President Trumpâs âChinese Virusâ Rhetoric | NBC News

On the night of April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili was assaulted, raped, and sodomized in Manhattan’s Central Park. On the night of the attack, five juvenile malesâfour African Americans and one of Hispanic descentâwere apprehended in connection with a number of attacks in Central Park committed by around 30 teenage perpetrators. The prosecution ignored evidence suggesting there was a single perpetrator whose DNA did not match any of the suspects, instead using confessions that the suspects said were coerced and false. They were convicted in 1990 by juries in two separate trials, receiving sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. The attacks were highly publicized in the media.

On May 1, 1989, Trump called for the return of the death penalty by taking out a full-page advertisement in all four of the city’s major newspapers. He said he wanted the “criminals of every age” who were accused of beating and raping a jogger in Central Park “to be afraid.” Trump told Larry King on CNN: “The problem with our society is the victim has absolutely no rights and the criminal has unbelievable rights” and, speaking of another case where a woman was raped and thrown out a window, “maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.”

You May Like: How To Work For Trump Campaign

Derogatory Statements Towards Haiti And Nigeria

In June 2017, Trump called together a staff meeting to complain about the number of immigrants who had entered the country since his inauguration. The New York Times reported that two officials at the meeting state that when Trump read off a sheet stating that 15,000 persons had visited from Haiti, he commented, “They all have AIDS,” and when reading that 40,000 persons had visited from Nigeria, he said that after seeing America the Nigerians would never “go back to their huts.” Both officials who heard Trump’s statements relayed them to other staff members at the time, but the White House has denied that Trump used those words and some of the other officials present claim not to remember them being used.

He Called Supporters Who Beat Up A Homeless Latino Man Passionate

Trumps racial incitement has already inspired hate crimes. Two brothers arrested in Boston last summer for beating up a homeless Latino man cited Trumps anti-immigrant message when explaining why they did it.

Donald Trump was right all these illegals need to be deported, one of the men reportedly told police officers.

Trump did not even bother to distance himself from them. Instead, he suggested that the men were well-intentioned and had simply gotten carried away.

I will say that people who are following me are very passionate, Trump said. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.

You May Like: Why Do Evangelicals Like Trump

He Claimed A Judge Was Biased Because Hes A Mexican

In May, Trump implied that Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge presiding over a class action against the for-profit Trump University, could not fairly hear the case because of his Mexican heritage.

Hes a Mexican, Trump told CNN of Curiel. Were building a wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings rulings that people cant even believe.

Curiel, it should be noted, is an American citizen who was born in Indiana. And as a prosecutor in the late 1990s, he went after Mexican drug cartels, making him a target for assassination by a Tijuana drug lord.

Even members of Trumps own party slammed the racist remarks.

Claiming a person cant do their job because of their race is sort of like the , House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a reaction to Trumps comments, though he clarified that he still endorses the nominee.

The comments against Curiel didnt sit well with the American public either. According to a YouGov poll released in June, 51 percent of those surveyed agreed that Trumps comments were not only wrong, but also racist.Fifty-seven percent of Americans think Trump was wrong to complain against the judge, while just 20 percent think he was right to do so.

When asked whether he would trust a Muslim judge, in light of his proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration, Trump suggested that such a judge might not be fair to him either.

Affirmative Action In Schools

Trump claims he

In July 2018, the Trump administration eliminated Obama-era guidelines suggesting that universities consider race for student admissions decisions. The Obama administration had wanted to cultivate a more diverse student body on university campuses, but the Trump administration viewed the guidelines as unconstitutional.

Don’t Miss: How Do I Get An Autographed Picture Of President Trump

Half Of Americans Think Trump Is Racist And Additional 13 Percent Are Unsure: Poll

Half of Americans think that President Donald Trump is a racist while an additional 13 percent are “not sure,” according to a new poll published this week.

The survey, which was conducted by YouGov/Yahoo! News from July 11 to 14, showed that 50 percent of U.S. adults said they think Trump is racist. Just 37 percent of respondents said they did not believe the president was racist, while 13 percent were unsure.

Comparatively, a little less than a quarter of U.S. adults said they think Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is racist, while 48 percent said they did not believe he was racist. An additional 29 percent said they were “not sure.” The poll got responses from 1,504 people and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percent.

In recent weeks, Trump has leaned into the culture wars playing out across the country. He has pushed back against efforts to remove monuments to Confederate soldiers, who fought to preserve slavery in rebellion of the Union government, while also suggesting that he doesn’t have a problem with the Confederate flag.

“Well, people love it, and I don’t view I know people that like the Confederate flag and they’re not thinking about slavery,” the president said in a Tuesday interview with CBS News.

White Farmers In South Africa

In August 2018, Trump sent a tweet stating that he had ordered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into land seizures and the mass killing of white farmers in South Africa, acting on a racist conspiracy theory. In fact, farming organisation AgriSA had recently reported that the murder rate on farms had declined to the lowest level in 20 years, one-third of the level recorded in 1998. In response, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement:

It is extremely disturbing that the President of the United States echoed a long-standing and false white supremacist claim that South Africa’s white farmers are targets of large-scale, racially-motivated killings by South Africa’s black majority. We would hope that the President would try to understand the facts and realities of the situation in South Africa, rather than repeat disturbing, racially divisive talking points used most frequently by white supremacists.

You May Like: Is President Trump Doing A Good Job

Not Every Trump Voter Is Racist Or Misled Theres A Rational Trump Voter Too

From the series In Trump County by Richard Beaven. The subjects in these photos voted for Trump in the 2016 elections.

So the landslide never came.

Donald Trump not only didnt lose votes, he gained votes. It seemed even more unfathomable than in 2016, where Trumps record only included his stunts on the campaign trail. Here was an increase in the Trump vote after four years where he fomented racial discord, behaved in unstable and destabilising ways, and mismanaged a pandemic that has already claimed almost a quarter of a million lives in the US.

But Trumps unexpected 2020 performance should never have been unexpected, whatever the polls said. It was only so because the motivations of Trump voters are still stuck in a binary, seen as either racist or misled.

There are broadly two strands of conventional wisdom regarding the United States: first, that it is a functioning democracy, and second, that in such a functioning democracy, one must either be ignorant or immoral to vote for someone as openly divisive and incompetent as Donald Trump.

Neither is true.

Join our newsletter | Our best foundational journalism, straight to your inbox

Rolling Back Civil Rights Protections

How Republicans defended Trumpâs racist tweets

In January 2021, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice sought approval to end enforcement of the Civil Rights Act in cases of “disparate impact” on minorities. According to Civil rights groups, not being able to use disparate impact analysis would result in less accountability for organizations with policies that result in racially disparate outcomes, such as discipline for students of color, and treatment of residents of color by their city’s police force.

Recommended Reading: What Time Is President Trump

Latest Posts

Popular Articles