Political arsonist, snake-oil-peddler, KKK-and-David Duke-endorsing president of the United States, Donald Trump, is a card-carrying bully who is also ignorant, dim-witted, inept, narcissistic, childish, mean-spirited, misogynistic, sexist, xenophobic, petty, Islamaphobic, homophobic, clownish, piggish, hateful, clumsy, reckless, Hitleresque, rude, insensitive, arrogant, devious, dangerous, a liar, and last, but not least, a staunch racist!
Did I mince words?
America in the age of Trump especially for African Americans has been a nightmare, with a record on racial matters that is disgraceful! The president uses his bigotry to distract voters and to energize his MAGA followers.
Why would Trump’s racism surprise anyone? After all, wasn’t Fred Trump, Donald’s dad, once detained ‘on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so?’ The “parade” was a 1927 Ku Klux Klan rally that turned violent in Queens, New York. What about niece Mary Trump, who claims in her book Too Much and Never Enough, how good old Fred was “perfectly happy being racist and anti-semitic in his own house and his place of work.”
Well, it seems the apple does not fall far from the tree!
Number 45 hasn’t stopped with racist acts after his 2016 election. From stereotyping a Black reporter to pandering to white supremacists after they held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to making a joke about the Trail of Tears (Native Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the southeastern U.S. to reservations in Oklahoma in the 1800s. Thousands of them died from disease, starvation and exposure along the way.). Most recently, Trump has called the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu” — both are racist terms that is so evident of his xenophobia.
The man whom niece Mary Trump calls a “sociopathic second son” has deflected the racism accusations against him since the 70s and many times since.
Trump has held up a mirror to American society, and it has reflected back a grotesque image that many people had until now refused to see. Though it was hardly his intention, no president has caused more Americans to stop denying the existence of racism than Donald Trump.
Here are a few of the racist stunts President Donald Trump has pulled over the years:
Sued for housing discrimination
1973: Trump has been a party to at least 3,500 lawsuits over the last 30 years—according to an analysis by USA Today. The U.S. Department of Justice sued Trump Management Corporation for violating the Fair Housing Act. Federal officials found evidence that Trump had refused to rent to Black tenants and lied to Black applicants about apartment availabilities. Trump accused the federal government of trying to get him to rent to welfare recipients. Two years later, he signed a document agreeing not to discriminate to renters of color without admitting to previous discrimination.
1980s: Kip Brown, who used to work at Atlantic City casinos including Trump’s Castle, accused the Trumps of blatant workplace discrimination. According to Brown,“When Donald and Ivana, visited the casino, the bosses would order all the Black people off the floor. It was the eighties, I was a teenager, but I remember it: they put us all in the back.”
Rallied round a modern-day lynching
1989: Four Black teens and one Latino teen who came to be known as the “Central Park Five” were accused of violently attacking and raping a female jogger in New York City’s Central Park. Trump, who was a prominent New Yorker at the time, ran a one-man crusade against the youths. He took out one-page ads in local papers demanding “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” The teens’ convictions were later vacated after they had spent 7 to 13 years in prison. The city paid $41 million in a settlement to the five men. In October 2016, Trump said the exonerated Central Park Five were still guilty of rape, despite DNA evidence proving their innocence.
Believes Blacks are lazy and inept
1991: In 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: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day… I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in Blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control…. If anybody ever heard me say that … holy shit … I’d be in a lot of trouble.”
Hid Black employee from a bigot
1992: The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino had to pay a $200,000 fine because it removed a Black dealer from his table in order to accommodate the bigotry of a high rolling customer.
Intimidated by overeducated Blacks
2004: Kevin Allen, a final four contestant on The Apprentice series’ second season is a Wharton Business School grad, Emory MBA, and University of Chicago law graduate, was “fired” from the show after Trump criticized his numerous degrees from elite universities. “You’re an unbelievably talented guy in terms of education, and you haven’t done anything,” Trump said on the show. “At some point you have to say ‘That’s enough.’” He also suggested that Allen was personally intimidating.
Entertainment Weekly’s Mark Harris said the show “humiliated itself in regards to Allen. By never addressing race head-on, and instead concocting a ludicrous way to turn Allen’s intelligence into a liability, the show paradoxically came off as so panicked about hiring a Black guy that they had to invent a new standard — ‘too smart’ — to boot him off,” Harris wrote.
Doubts we’ll ever see another Black president
2004: Donald Trump once tweeted, “Sadly, because President Obama has done such a poor job as president, you won’t see another Black president for generations!”
Pitched an idea for a racist game show
2005: Trump publicly pitched what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. The commander in chief said he “wasn’t particularly happy” with the most recent season of his show, so he was considering “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 not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.”
He is a birther peddler
2011: Regarding Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Trump embraced the birtherism theory wholesale, wielding his trademark innuendos and falsehoods. “He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate—maybe religion, maybe it says he’s a Muslim; I don’t know,” Trump told Fox News. “I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” he told NBC. “I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate,” he suggested later. Obama later released his birth certificate, calling Trump a “carnival barker.” Trump has reportedly continued pushing this conspiracy theory in private. While this remains a controversial subject, what have been identified as Obama’s short and long-form birth certificates have been released and Hawaiian officials have long maintained that Obama was born there and is a natural born American citizen.
Claimed Obama was not smart enough for ivy league schools
2011: Trump argued that Barack Obama wasn’t a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School, and demanded that he release his university transcripts. Trump claimed, “I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.” Trump has stated that Obama’s refusal to release his college grades were part of a pattern of concealing information about himself.
Thought beating of Black Lives Matter protester was justified
2015: At a campaign rally in Alabama, Trump supporters physically attacked an African American protester after the man began chanting “Black Lives Matter.” Video of the incident shows the assailants kicking the man after he had already fallen to the ground.
The following day, Trump implied that the attackers were justified. “Maybe (the protester) should have been roughed up,” he exclaimed. “It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
Reminded Blacks how they’re in dire straits and have nothing to lose
2016: Trump gave a speech in the predominantly white suburb of Dimondale, Michigan where he addressed a smattering of Black attendees. Trump fervently said, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump asked the audience in an unscripted moment from a speech in which he otherwise stuck to his teleprompter.
Assumes all Blacks know each other
2017: Trump stereotyped and disparaged a Black CNN commentator and White House reporter at two press conferences. When April Ryan asked Number 45 if he had planned on meeting and working with the Congressional Black Caucus, he repeatedly asked her to set up the meeting—even as she insisted that she was “just a reporter.” A year later, when asked about the White House’s decision to revoke press credentials for CNN’s Jim Acosta, Trump railed against other reporters and targeted Ryan, with whom the White House has sparred before, calling Ryan a “loser” and “nasty.”
Referred to white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. as “some very fine people”
2017: A week after the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump repeatedly said that “many sides” and “both sides” were to blame for the violence and chaos that erupted. He suggested that the white supremacist protesters were morally equivalent to counter protesters who stood against racism. Trump also stated that there were “some very fine people” among the white supremacists. White nationalist Richard Spencer praised Trump for “defending the truth.”
Attacked NFL players for kneeling in protest
2017-2020: Trump repeatedly attacked NFL players who knelt during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner before games in protest of police brutality and systemic racism in America. Trump has called kneeling “disgraceful.” Trump tweeted: “Looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the national anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our country and our flag, the game is over for me!”
Denigrates Haitians & Nigerians
2017: During a heated White House meeting about immigration, Trump reportedly said that people who come to the U.S. from Haiti “all have AIDS.” He then went on to mockingly state that people who come to the U.S. from Nigeria would never “go back to their huts” once they saw America. The White House denied Trump’s vitriolic comments.
Refers to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”
2018: In a bipartisan meeting, Trump reportedly asked, in reference to Haiti and Africa, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He then reportedly suggested that the U.S. should accept more people from countries like Norway. The implication: Immigrants from predominantly white countries are better than immigrants from predominantly Black countries.
Disrespects Congresswomen of color
2018: Trump tweeted the following racist political assault to four Black and brown freshman members of Congress–Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI): “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough.” Trump was completely ignorant of the fact that three of the four members of Congress whom he targeted were born in the U.S. After his racist tweet, Trump woke up the next morning once again in a state of angry denial. “Those tweets were NOT racist,” he tweeted. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!”
Trump and Congresswoman Maxine Waters have been sparring since Waters encouraged people at a Los Angeles event back in 2018 to make Trump administration officials uncomfortable if they spot them in public. Waters made the comments amid heightened political tensions over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies. Trump has publicly attacked the California Democratic representative by referring to her as “crazy” and saying her behavior will “make people flee the Democrats.” He has also referred to Waters as being “an extraordinarily low IQ person.” Waters received several death threats in the days following her first comments.
Wishes films would return to those “yessum massa” times
2020: According to CNN, Trump was speaking at a rally in Colorado where he made fun of the critically acclaimed South Korean film Parasite. The megalomaniac mentioned how he longed for the days of films with white leads, especially those that took place in the south when slavery was in full swing. “I’m looking for like, let’s get Gone with the Wind. Can we get like Gone with the Wind back, please? So many great movies,” he said.
Thinks the Confederate flag is not a racist symbol
2020: In an interview on Fox News Trump poked fun at those seeking to rename the military base in North Carolina that is currently named after the Confederate General Braxton Bragg. During the interview, Trump declined to denounce the confederate flag. He stated how “people love” the Confederate battle flag and that he considers it a “freedom of speech” issue. He called it “very simple” and dismissed the idea that the flag is hurtful to Black Americans and others who see it as a racist symbol. “Well, people love it, and I know people that like the Confederate flag, and they’re not thinking about slavery,” Trump said when asked whether he understood the pain it caused people because of its association with slavery.
Sample of Number 45’s fabricated tweets to win over Blacks
2020: My admin has done more for the Black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Passed opportunity zones with @SenatorTimScott, guaranteed funding for HBCU’s, School Choice, passed criminal justice reform, lowest Black unemployment, poverty, and crime rates in history…
Targets Kamala Harris with his racist birther theory
2020: Trump promoted a false and racist theory that Senator Kamala Harris, the first woman of color on a major political party general election ticket, and who was born in California, is not eligible to be vice president because her parents were immigrants. “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” the president said when asked by a reporter at a White House briefing in August. Here is yet another example of how Trump tries to give credibility to his wacky conspiracy theories to create an angry and fanatical movement.
Trump is a man who has referred to Barack Obama as a “negative force” and tried desperately to erase our former Black president from history by repealing and replacing his signature accomplishments, from the Affordable Care Act to DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.
Trump would also build a wall to keep out immigrants, and ban Muslims from entering the country. He has labeled Mexicans as immigrants, rapists, drug traffickers and criminals. Not to mention how our leader could have prevented a pandemic that has had a disproportionate effect on people of color.
Finally, we have the ghastly killings of African Americans at the hands of our men in blue and how Trump has dismissed outrage over these murders, stating that “more white people” are killed by police than Black people. (African Americans, who make up a far smaller portion of the total population than whites, are killed at a rate more than twice that of whites.)
America’s always trying to find this gotcha moment that shows Donald Trump is racist—you know, let’s find this one big thing. Let’s look for that one time when he burned a cross in someone’s yard so we can now finally say it. People refuse to see the bread crumbs that are already in front of you, leading you to grandma’s house.
–Kwame Jackson was the runner-up on The Apprentice’s first season
Instances of bigotry involving Donald Trump span more than four decades.
In the days before his inauguration, president-elect Donald Trump met with civil rights leaders at Trump Tower and boasted that lower turnout among Black Americans helped propel him to victory in the 2016 election. PLEASE LET’S PREVENT HISTORY FROM REPEATING ITSELF!
