Trump Will Make America Racist Again

If you ask President Donald Trump, he isn't racist. To the opposite, he's repeatedly said that he'due south "the least racist person that yous've always encountered."

Trump's actual record, nonetheless, tells a very different story.

On the entrada trail, Trump repeatedly made explicitly racist and otherwise narrow-minded remarks, from calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, to proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the U.s.a., to suggesting a gauge should recuse himself from a example solely because of the judge's Mexican heritage.

The trend has continued into his presidency. From stereotyping a Blackness reporter to pandering to white supremacists afterwards they held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to making a joke near the Trail of Tears, Trump hasn't stopped with racist acts after his 2016 ballot.

Nearly recently, Trump has chosen the SARS-CoV-ii coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and "kung flu" — racist terms that tap into the kind of xenophobia that he latched onto during his 2016 presidential campaign; Trump's own adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously called "kung flu" a "highly offensive" term. And Trump insinuated that Sen. Kamala Harris, who's Blackness, "doesn't come across the requirements" to run for vice president — a repeat of the birther conspiracy theory that he perpetuated about one-time President Barack Obama.

This is nothing new for Trump. In fact, the very first time Trump appeared in the pages of the New York Times, back in the 1970s, was when the U.s.a. Department of Justice sued him for racial discrimination. Since then, he has repeatedly appeared in paper pages across the globe as he inspired more than like controversies.

This long history is important. Information technology would be one thing if Trump misspoke one or two times. But when you take all of his actions and comments together, a clear pattern emerges — i that suggests that bigotry is not just political opportunism on Trump's office but a real element of his personality, character, and career.

Trump has a long history of racist controversies

Hither's a breakup of Trump's history, taken largely from Dara Lind'southward list for Vox and an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:

• 1973: The United states Department of Justice — nether the Nixon administration, out of all administrations — sued the Trump Direction Corporation for violating the Fair Housing Deed. Federal officials establish bear witness that Trump had refused to rent to Black tenants and lied to Black applicants about whether apartments were available, amidst other accusations. Trump said the federal authorities was trying to become him to rent to welfare recipients. In the aftermath, he signed an agreement in 1975 agreeing non to discriminate to renters of colour without albeit to previous discrimination.
• 1980s: Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump'south Castle, accused some other one of Trump'southward businesses of discrimination. "When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would social club all the blackness people off the floor," Brown said. "It was the eighties, I was a teenager, only I remember it: They put us all in the dorsum."
• 1989: In a controversial instance that's been characterized as a modern-day lynching, 4 Black teenagers and one Latino teenager — the "Central Park 5" — were defendant of attacking and raping a jogger in New York City. Trump immediately took charge in the instance, running an ad in local papers demanding, "BRING Back THE Death PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!" The teens' convictions were later vacated after they spent seven to xiii years in prison, and the city paid $41 million in a settlement to the teens. Merely Trump in October 2016 said he still believes they're guilty, despite the Dna evidence to the reverse.
• 1991: A book by John O'Donnell, former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, quoted Trump's criticism of a Black accountant: "Blackness guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are brusk guys that vesture yarmulkes every day. … I recall that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his error, considering laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. Information technology's not anything they tin control." Trump later said in a 1997 Playboy interview that "the stuff O'Donnell wrote about me is probably true."
• 1992: The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino had to pay a $200,000 fine because it transferred Black and women dealers off tables to accommodate a large-time gambler's prejudices.
• 1993: In congressional testimony, Trump said that some Native American reservations operating casinos shouldn't be immune because "they don't expect like Indians to me."
• 2000: In opposition to a casino proposed by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe, which he saw every bit a financial threat to his casinos in Atlantic Metropolis, Trump secretly ran a serial of ads suggesting the tribe had a "tape of criminal activity [that] is well documented."
• 2004: In season two of The Apprentice, Trump fired Kevin Allen, a Black contestant, for being overeducated. "Y'all're an unbelievably talented guy in terms of education, and you haven't done anything," Trump said on the testify. "At some point you accept to say, 'That'south plenty.'"
• 2005: Trump publicly pitched what was essentially The Amateur: White People vs. Black People. He said he "wasn't particularly happy" with the near recent flavour of his show, and then he was because "an idea that is fairly controversial — creating a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or non, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious globe."
• 2010: In 2010, there was a huge national controversy over the "Ground Zippo Mosque" — a proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Trump opposed the projection, calling it "insensitive," and offered to buy out one of the investors in the project. On The Late Show With David Letterman, Trump argued, referring to Muslims, "Well, somebody's bravado us up. Somebody'due south blowing up buildings, and somebody's doing lots of bad stuff."
• 2011: Trump played a big role in pushing false rumors that Obama — the land's get-go Blackness president — was not born in the The states. He claimed to send investigators to Hawaii to expect into Obama's birth certificate. Obama later released his birth document, calling Trump a "funfair barker." The inquiry has establish a strong correlation between birtherism, equally the conspiracy theory is chosen, and racism. Only Trump has reportedly continued pushing this conspiracy theory in individual.
• 2011: While Trump suggested that Obama wasn't born in the The states, he also argued that maybe Obama wasn't a expert enough pupil to take gotten into Columbia or Harvard Police School, and demanded Obama release his university transcripts. Trump claimed, "I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia then to Harvard?"

For many people, none of these incidents, individually, may be damning: I of these alone might suggest that Trump is only a bad speaker and perhaps racially insensitive ("politically incorrect," as he would put it), just not overtly racist.

Merely when you put all these events together, a clear blueprint emerges. At the very to the lowest degree, Trump has a history of playing into people'due south racism to eternalize himself — and that probable says something near him, too.

And, of course, in that location's everything that's happened through and since his presidential entrada.

Every bit a candidate and president, Trump has made many more than racist comments

On height of all that history, Trump has repeatedly made racist — often explicitly so — remarks on the campaign trail and as president:

• Trump launched his campaign in 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" who are "bringing offense" and "bringing drugs" to the United states. His entrada was largely built on edifice a wall to keep these immigrants out of the US.
• As a candidate in 2015, Trump called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the US. His administration somewhen implemented a significantly watered-downwardly version of the policy.
• When asked at a 2016 Republican argue whether all 1.half dozen billion Muslims hate the United states, Trump said, "I hateful a lot of them. I mean a lot of them."
• He argued in 2016 that Judge Gonzalo Curiel — who was overseeing the Trump University lawsuit — should recuse himself from the case because of his Mexican heritage and membership in a Latino lawyers association. Business firm Speaker Paul Ryan, who endorsed Trump, afterward called such comments "the textbook definition of a racist comment."
• Trump has been repeatedly deadening to condemn white supremacists who endorse him, and he regularly retweeted letters from white supremacists and neo-Nazis during his presidential campaign.
• He tweeted and later deleted an image that showed Hillary Clinton in front end of a pile of money and by a Jewish Star of David that said, "Nearly Corrupt Candidate Always!" The tweet had some very obvious anti-Semitic imagery, but Trump insisted that the star was a sheriff's bluecoat, and said his entrada shouldn't have deleted it.
• Trump has repeatedly referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) equally "Pocahontas," using her controversial — and subsequently walked-back — claims to Native American heritage as a punchline.
• At the 2016 Republican convention, Trump officially seized the mantle of the "police force and society" candidate — an obvious dog whistle playing to white fears of Blackness crime, even though crime in the U.s. is historically low. His speeches, comments, and executive actions later he took office take continued this line of messaging.
• In a pitch to Black voters in 2016, Trump said, "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 per centum of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?"
• Trump stereotyped a Black reporter at a press conference in February 2017. When April Ryan asked him if he plans to encounter and piece of work with the Congressional Black Caucus, he repeatedly asked her to gear up the coming together — fifty-fifty every bit she insisted that she's "only a reporter."
• In the week after white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, Trump repeatedly said that "many sides" and "both sides" were to blame for the violence and chaos that ensued — suggesting that the white supremacist protesters were morally equivalent to counterprotesters who stood against racism. He also said that there were "some very fine people" amongst the white supremacists. All of this seemed like a dog whistle to white supremacists — and many of them took information technology as one, with white nationalist Richard Spencer praising Trump for "defending the truth."
• Throughout 2017, Trump repeatedly attacked NFL players who, by kneeling or otherwise silently protesting during the national canticle, demonstrated against systemic racism in America.
• Trump reportedly said in 2017 that people who came to the United states of america from Haiti "all have AIDS," and he lamented that people who came to the U.s.a. from Nigeria would never "get back to their huts" one time they saw America. The White Firm denied that Trump ever fabricated these comments.
• Speaking about clearing in a bipartisan meeting in Jan 2018, Trump reportedly asked, in reference to Haiti and African countries, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" He then reportedly suggested that the U.s.a. should take more people from countries like Norway. The implication: Immigrants from predominantly white countries are skilful, while immigrants from predominantly Black countries are bad.
• Trump denied making the "shithole" comments, although some senators present at the coming together said they happened. The White House, meanwhile, suggested that the comments, like Trump's remarks near the NFL protests, volition play well to his base. The only connection betwixt Trump'southward remarks near the NFL protests and his "shithole" comments is race.
• Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren'south presidential entrada, again calling her "Pocahontas" in a 2019 tweet before adding, "Meet y'all on the entrada TRAIL, Liz!" The capitalized "TRAIL" is seemingly a reference to the Trail of Tears — a horrific deed of ethnic cleansing in the 19th century in which Native Americans were forcibly relocated, causing thousands of deaths.
• Trump tweeted later that year that several Black and brown members of Congress — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — are "from countries whose governments are a complete and total ending" and that they should "go dorsum" to those countries. It's a mutual racist trope to say that Blackness and brownish people, particularly immigrants, should become back to their countries of origin. Iii of the four members of Congress whom Trump targeted were born in the US.
• Trump has called the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and "kung flu." The Earth Health Organisation advises against linking a virus to any particular region, since it can lead to stigma. Trump's adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously described the term "kung influenza" every bit "highly offensive." Meanwhile, Asian Americans have reported hateful incidents targeting them due to the spread of the coronavirus.
• Trump suggested that Kamala Harris, who's Black and South Asian, "doesn't encounter the requirements" to be old Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden'south running mate — yet another example of birtherism.

This listing is non comprehensive, instead relying on some of the major examples since Trump announced his candidacy. Only once once again, at that place's a blueprint of racism and bigotry here that suggests Trump isn't just misspeaking; it is who he is.

Are Trump's actions and comments "racist"? Or are they "bigoted"?

Ane of the common defenses for Trump is that he'south not necessarily racist, because the Muslim and Mexican people he oft targets don't actually comprise a race.

Disgraced announcer Mark Halperin, for example, said as much when Trump argued Judge Curiel should recuse himself from the Trump Academy case because of his Mexican heritage, making the astute observation that "Mexico isn't a race."

Kristof fabricated a similar point in the New York Times: "My view is that 'racist' can be a loaded word, a conversation stopper more than a clarifier, and that we should be conscientious not to use it simply as an epithet. Moreover, Muslims and Latinos tin be of whatsoever race, so some of those statements technically reflect not so much racism as discrimination. Information technology's also truthful that with any single statement, it is possible that Trump misspoke or was misconstrued."

This critique misses the bespeak on two levels.

For one, the argument is tremendously semantic. It's essentially probing the question: Is Trump racist or is he narrow-minded? But who cares? Neither is a trait that anyone should desire in a president — and either label essentially communicates the same criticism.

Another upshot is that race is socially malleable. Over the years, Americans considered Germans, Greeks, Irish, Italians, and Spaniards as nonwhite people of different races. That's inverse. Similarly, some Americans today consider Latinos and, to a bottom degree, some people with Muslim and Jewish backgrounds every bit part of a nonwhite race too. (As a Latin homo, I certainly consider myself to be of a different race, and the treatment I've received in the course of my life validates that.) So under current definitions, comments confronting these groups are, indeed, racist.

This is all possible because, as Jenée Desmond-Harris explained for Vox, race is entirely a social construct with no biological basis. This doesn't mean race and people'due south views of race don't have real effects on many people — of course they do — just it means that people'south definitions of race tin change over time.

But really, whatever you want to call it, Trump has made racist and narrow-minded comments in the past. That much should exist clear in the long lists in a higher place.

Trump's bigotry was a key part of his entrada

Regardless of how one labels it, Trump'south racism or discrimination was a big part of his entrada — past giving a candidate to the many white Americans who harbor racial resentment.

1 paper, published in January 2017 by political scientists Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, and Tatishe Nteta, establish that voters' measures of sexism and racism correlated much more closely with back up for Trump than economic dissatisfaction, later on controlling for factors like partisanship and political ideology.

Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, and Tatishe Nteta

Another report, conducted past researchers Brenda Major, Alison Blodorn, and Gregory Major Blascovich soon before the 2016 election, plant that if people who strongly identified equally white were told that nonwhite groups volition outnumber white people in 2042, they became more than probable to support Trump.

And a study, published in November 2017 by researchers Matthew Luttig, Christopher Federico, and Howard Lavine, found that Trump supporters were much more than likely to change their views on housing policy based on race. In this study, respondents were randomly assigned "a subtle paradigm of either a black or a white man." Then they were asked about views on housing policy.

The researchers found that Trump supporters were much more probable to exist impacted by the epitome of a Black man. After the exposure, they were not only less supportive of housing assistance programs, only they also expressed college levels of anger that some people receive government assistance, and they were more than likely to say that individuals who receive assistance are to blame for their situation.

In contrast, favorability toward Hillary Clinton did non significantly change respondents' views on whatever of these issues when primed with racial cues.

"These findings point that responses to the racial cue varied as a role of feelings about Donald Trump — but not feelings near Hillary Clinton — during the 2016 presidential ballot," the researchers concluded.

There is likewise a lot of other research showing that people's racial attitudes can change their views on politics and policy, as Dylan Matthews and researchers Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel previously explained for Vocalism.

Merely put, racial attitudes were a big driver of Trump's ballot — just as they long have been for general beliefs about politics and policy. (Much more on all the research in Vox's explainer.)

Meanwhile, white supremacist groups have openly embraced Trump. As Sarah Posner and David Neiwert reported at Mother Jones, what the media largely treated as gaffes — Trump retweeting white nationalists, Trump describing Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and criminals — were to white supremacists real signals approving of their racist causes. One white supremacist wrote, "Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full-flash-wink-wink to his most aggressive supporters."

Some of them even argued that Trump has softened the greater public to their racist messaging. "The success of the Trump campaign simply proves that our views resonate with millions," said Rachel Pendergraft, a national organizer for the Knights Party, which succeeded David Duke'due south Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. "They may not exist set up for the Ku Klux Klan however, just as anti-white hatred escalates, they will."

And at the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, David Duke, the quondam KKK grand magician, said that the rally was meant "to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."

And so while Trump may deny his racism and bigotry, at some level his supporters seem to get it. As much as his history of racism shows that he's racist, maybe who supported him and why is but equally revealing — and it doesn't pigment a favorable picture for Trump.

rogersongolind.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history

Share this post