Incidents of White Attacks Agains Color Since Trump Was Elected

If y'all inquire President Donald Trump, he isn't racist. To the contrary, he's repeatedly said that he's "the least racist person that y'all've ever encountered."

Trump's actual tape, however, tells a very different story.

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

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

Almost 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 entrada; Trump'southward ain adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously chosen "kung flu" a "highly offensive" term. And Trump insinuated that Sen. Kamala Harris, who's Blackness, "doesn't meet the requirements" to run for vice president — a repeat of the birther conspiracy theory that he perpetuated almost one-time President Barack Obama.

This is null 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 US Department of Justice sued him for racial discrimination. Since then, he has repeatedly appeared in newspaper pages across the world as he inspired more similar controversies.

This long history is important. It would exist one affair if Trump misspoke one or two times. But when you have all of his actions and comments together, a clear pattern emerges — ane that suggests that discrimination is not merely political opportunism on Trump'due south role only a existent element of his personality, graphic symbol, and career.

Trump has a long history of racist controversies

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

• 1973: The US Department of Justice — under the Nixon administration, out of all administrations — sued the Trump Management Corporation for violating the Fair Housing Act. Federal officials establish bear witness that Trump had refused to hire to Blackness tenants and lied to Blackness applicants about whether apartments were available, amongst other accusations. Trump said the federal government was trying to become him to rent to welfare recipients. In the aftermath, he signed an agreement in 1975 agreeing not to discriminate to renters of color without admitting to previous discrimination.
• 1980s: Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump's Castle, accused another 1 of Trump's businesses of discrimination. "When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would club all the blackness people off the flooring," Brown said. "It was the eighties, I was a teenager, just I remember it: They put us all in the back."
• 1989: In a controversial instance that's been characterized as a modernistic-day lynching, four Black teenagers and 1 Latino teenager — the "Central Park Five" — were accused of attacking and raping a jogger in New York Metropolis. Trump immediately took charge in the case, running an advert in local papers demanding, "BRING Back THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING Dorsum OUR POLICE!" The teens' convictions were later vacated after they spent vii to thirteen years in prison, and the city paid $41 million in a settlement to the teens. But Trump in October 2016 said he still believes they're guilty, despite the DNA evidence to the contrary.
• 1991: A book past John O'Donnell, former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic Metropolis, quoted Trump'south criticism of a Black auditor: "Blackness guys counting my money! I hate information technology. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wearable yarmulkes every twenty-four hours. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably non his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. Information technology actually is, I believe that. It'due south non anything they can command." Trump subsequently said in a 1997 Playboy interview that "the stuff O'Donnell wrote most me is probably true."
• 1992: The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino had to pay a $200,000 fine considering information technology 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 allowed because "they don't await similar Indians to me."
• 2000: In opposition to a casino proposed past the St. Regis Mohawk tribe, which he saw every bit a fiscal threat to his casinos in Atlantic Metropolis, Trump secretly ran a series of ads suggesting the tribe had a "record of criminal activity [that] is well documented."
• 2004: In season 2 of The Amateur, Trump fired Kevin Allen, a Black contestant, for being overeducated. "You're an unbelievably talented guy in terms of education, and you oasis't done anything," Trump said on the show. "At some signal you have to say, 'That'south enough.'"
• 2005: Trump publicly pitched what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He said he "wasn't especially happy" with the most contempo season of his bear witness, 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."
• 2010: In 2010, there was a huge national controversy over the "Basis Goose egg Mosque" — a proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of the nine/11 attacks. Trump opposed the projection, calling it "insensitive," and offered to buy out ane of the investors in the project. On The Late Prove With David Letterman, Trump argued, referring to Muslims, "Well, somebody'south blowing us up. Somebody's blowing up buildings, and somebody's doing lots of bad stuff."
• 2011: Trump played a large part in pushing false rumors that Obama — the country'due south offset Black president — was not born in the US. He claimed to ship investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama's birth certificate. Obama after released his nativity document, calling Trump a "carnival barker." The research has found a strong correlation between birtherism, equally the conspiracy theory is called, and racism. Simply Trump has reportedly continued pushing this conspiracy theory in private.
• 2011: While Trump suggested that Obama wasn't born in the U.s.a., he also argued that possibly Obama wasn't a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School, and demanded Obama release his university transcripts. Trump claimed, "I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. How does a bad student get to Columbia and then to Harvard?"

For many people, none of these incidents, individually, may be damning: One of these solitary might suggest that Trump is simply a bad speaker and perchance racially insensitive ("politically incorrect," as he would put information technology), but not overtly racist.

But when you put all these events together, a articulate pattern emerges. At the very to the lowest degree, Trump has a history of playing into people's racism to bolster himself — and that likely says something about him, also.

And, of grade, there's everything that'southward happened through and since his presidential campaign.

Equally a candidate and president, Trump has made many more racist comments

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

• Trump launched his campaign in 2015 past calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" who are "bringing criminal offence" and "bringing drugs" to the United states. His campaign was largely built on building a wall to go on these immigrants out of the United states.
• Equally a candidate in 2015, Trump called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the US. His administration eventually implemented a significantly watered-down version of the policy.
• When asked at a 2016 Republican debate whether all 1.6 billion Muslims hate the US, Trump said, "I mean 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. Firm Speaker Paul Ryan, who endorsed Trump, subsequently called such comments "the textbook definition of a racist annotate."
• Trump has been repeatedly wearisome 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 of a pile of money and past a Jewish Star of David that said, "Most Corrupt Candidate Always!" The tweet had some very obvious anti-Semitic imagery, merely Trump insisted that the star was a sheriff'southward badge, and said his campaign shouldn't have deleted it.
• Trump has repeatedly referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as "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 "law and order" candidate — an obvious dog whistle playing to white fears of Black crime, even though law-breaking in the The states is historically low. His speeches, comments, and executive actions after he took office have connected this line of messaging.
• In a pitch to Black voters in 2016, Trump said, "You lot're living in poverty, your schools are no proficient, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?"
• Trump stereotyped a Black reporter at a press conference in Feb 2017. When April Ryan asked him if he plans to meet and work with the Congressional Black Conclave, he repeatedly asked her to set up the meeting — even as she insisted that she'southward "just a reporter."
• In the week afterward 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 confronting racism. He likewise said that there were "some very fine people" amid the white supremacists. All of this seemed like a domestic dog whistle to white supremacists — and many of them took information technology every bit 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 US from Haiti "all have AIDS," and he lamented that people who came to the US from Nigeria would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America. The White Firm denied that Trump ever made these comments.
• Speaking about clearing in a bipartisan meeting in January 2018, Trump reportedly asked, in reference to Republic of haiti and African countries, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" He then reportedly suggested that the Us should have more people from countries like Norway. The implication: Immigrants from predominantly white countries are good, while immigrants from predominantly Black countries are bad.
• Trump denied making the "shithole" comments, although some senators present at the meeting said they happened. The White House, meanwhile, suggested that the comments, like Trump's remarks almost the NFL protests, will play well to his base. The only connection betwixt Trump'due south remarks well-nigh the NFL protests and his "shithole" comments is race.
• Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren'southward presidential campaign, again calling her "Pocahontas" in a 2019 tweet earlier calculation, "See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!" The capitalized "TRAIL" is seemingly a reference to the Trail of Tears — a horrific act of ethnic cleansing in the 19th century in which Native Americans were forcibly relocated, causing thousands of deaths.
• Trump tweeted later that twelvemonth 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 full catastrophe" and that they should "go back" to those countries. It's a common racist trope to say that Black and brown people, specially immigrants, should get back to their countries of origin. Three of the four members of Congress whom Trump targeted were born in the The states.
• Trump has called the SARS-CoV-ii coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and "kung influenza." The World Health System advises confronting linking a virus to whatever particular region, since information technology tin can pb to stigma. Trump'south adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously described the term "kung flu" as "highly offensive." Meanwhile, Asian Americans accept reported mean incidents targeting them due to the spread of the coronavirus.
• Trump suggested that Kamala Harris, who's Black and South Asian, "doesn't come across the requirements" to be former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's running mate — yet some other example of birtherism.

This list is non comprehensive, instead relying on some of the major examples since Trump announced his candidacy. But once again, there'southward a blueprint of racism and discrimination here that suggests Trump isn't just misspeaking; it is who he is.

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

I of the common defenses for Trump is that he's not necessarily racist, because the Muslim and Mexican people he ofttimes targets don't actually incorporate a race.

Disgraced journalist Mark Halperin, for case, said every bit much when Trump argued Judge Curiel should recuse himself from the Trump University case because of his Mexican heritage, making the acute observation that "Mexico isn't a race."

Kristof made 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 exist careful not to utilise information technology simply every bit an epithet. Moreover, Muslims and Latinos can be of any race, then some of those statements technically reverberate not and then much racism as bigotry. Information technology's besides true that with any unmarried statement, information technology is possible that Trump misspoke or was misconstrued."

This critique misses the point on two levels.

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

Another issue is that race is socially malleable. Over the years, Americans considered Germans, Greeks, Irish, Italians, and Spaniards every bit nonwhite people of unlike races. That'southward changed. Similarly, some Americans today consider Latinos and, to a lesser degree, some people with Muslim and Jewish backgrounds every bit office of a nonwhite race too. (Equally a Latin man, 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 against these groups are, indeed, racist.

This is all possible because, every bit Jenée Desmond-Harris explained for Vox, race is entirely a social construct with no biological ground. This doesn't mean race and people's views of race don't have real effects on many people — of course they do — just it ways that people'southward definitions of race can alter over fourth dimension.

Merely really, whatever you want to call information technology, Trump has made racist and bigoted comments in the past. That much should be clear in the long lists in a higher place.

Trump'due south bigotry was a key part of his entrada

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

I paper, published in January 2017 past political scientists Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, and Tatishe Nteta, institute that voters' measures of sexism and racism correlated much more closely with support for Trump than economic dissatisfaction, after 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 shortly earlier the 2016 election, institute that if people who strongly identified as white were told that nonwhite groups will outnumber white people in 2042, they became more likely to support Trump.

And a written report, published in November 2017 by researchers Matthew Luttig, Christopher Federico, and Howard Lavine, plant that Trump supporters were much more likely to change their views on housing policy based on race. In this report, respondents were randomly assigned "a subtle image of either a blackness or a white human." Then they were asked nearly views on housing policy.

The researchers plant that Trump supporters were much more likely to be impacted by the epitome of a Black man. Subsequently the exposure, they were non just less supportive of housing assistance programs, merely they also expressed higher levels of anger that some people receive government assistance, and they were more than probable to say that individuals who receive assistance are to arraign for their situation.

In contrast, favorability toward Hillary Clinton did not significantly change respondents' views on whatsoever of these bug when primed with racial cues.

"These findings betoken that responses to the racial cue varied as a function of feelings well-nigh Donald Trump — but not feelings about Hillary Clinton — during the 2016 presidential election," the researchers ended.

There is as well a lot of other enquiry showing that people'due south racial attitudes can change their views on politics and policy, as Dylan Matthews and researchers Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel previously explained for Voice.

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

Meanwhile, white supremacist groups accept openly embraced Trump. As Sarah Posner and David Neiwert reported at Female parent Jones, what the media largely treated every bit gaffes — Trump retweeting white nationalists, Trump describing Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and criminals — were to white supremacists real signals approval of their racist causes. I white supremacist wrote, "Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full-wink-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 but proves that our views resonate with millions," said Rachel Pendergraft, a national organizer for the Knights Party, which succeeded David Duke'southward Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. "They may non exist ready for the Ku Klux Klan yet, but every bit anti-white hatred escalates, they will."

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

So while Trump may deny his racism and discrimination, at some level his supporters seem to get it. Every bit much every bit his history of racism shows that he'due south racist, perchance who supported him and why is just every bit revealing — and information technology doesn't pigment a favorable picture for Trump.

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

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