Donald Trump is so racist in his public words and actions that it would be shocking if he wasn’t more racist in private. It’s still somehow shocking to read the details of just how racist he is in private.
The ways Trump has encoded racism in policy and public messaging are far more significant than what he says privately, of course—family separation, attacks on Black Lives Matter protesters and even encouraging police violence, gutting fair housing regulations, working to limit legal immigrants and refugees, embracing voter suppression, campaigning on racial division. But it does matter that the people who spend time with him say that in private he is casually racist on a regular basis.
It matters that “current and former U.S. officials” told The Washington Post that Trump “has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments.” Not slavery, not segregation, not generational wealth inequality caused by generations of racist policy, not ongoing racism in the criminal justice system or in the labor market. Just individual Black people.
Also, “After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews ‘are only in it for themselves’ and ‘stick together’ in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.” It’s a disgusting anti-Semitic trope and one that, of course, connects directly to Trump recently saying to American Jews “we love your country.”
Trump, the Post reports, said of Melania Trump’s plans to visit Africa that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.” Which, again, connects to a previously reported comment, when he in 2018 referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”
The Post uses these anecdotes as the intro to a story on Trump’s broader record on race, from the “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville white supremacist riots to his overwhelmingly white judicial appointments to that time he tweeted and then deleted a video in which a supporter yelled “white power.” But it deeply, deeply matters if, when Trump is on the phone with Jewish lawmakers (like, say, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer), he’s thinking of them as not really American.
The defense offered by some of the current and former Trump officials is that Trump is way more sexist than he is racist, and he’s also abusive to white people sometimes. We can acknowledge, though, that he’s an asshole and a narcissist and still take issue with the fact that he is a specifically racist and anti-Semitic and sexist asshole and narcissist.
Yippee: “No senior U.S. official interviewed could recall Trump uttering a racial or ethnic slur while in office.” That’s what we’ve got. Sure, he thinks Jewish people are what anti-Semitic portrayals of them claim, and he thinks Black people are to blame for the effects of racism, and he thinks African countries are “shitholes” that there’s no reason to visit. But the people he chose to be his senior officials cannot at this time recall him using the n-word while in office.
One former official insisted “I don’t think Donald Trump is in any way a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi or anything of the sort.” It’s just that “I think he has a general awareness that one component of his base includes factions that trend in that direction.” Excuse me, hedging much? One component … factions … trend? He’s doing all this because factions of a single component of his base have a gentle lean toward racism? I think not. To say nothing of the fact that the private statements show he’s not just cynically catering to racists. And if he was? Well, he’d be doing major damage to the cause of equality and justice in order to win votes from racists. That wouldn’t be great either!
The Washington Post makes a lot of really weird decisions with this piece, maybe because there’s simply too much to work with. Having a headline referring to “allegations of racism” in a piece that 100% shows racism at work is typical traditional media cowardice, akin to The New York Times’ official resistance to calling a lie a lie. But opening with bombshell anecdotes like this article does and then moving on without returning to them or teasing out their importance is bizarre. It’s not the cowardice of burying a shocking anecdote, but neither is it especially good journalism. There are two stories here: the one of Trump’s public statements and his policy moves aimed at solidifying racism in the structures of the government, and one about what his current and former senior officials recount him saying in private. Trying to weave those stories together has simply muddied the field. What’s clear though is that Trump’s a flaming racist no matter which way you look at it.
from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/302Ui6d
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