Racism: Today's "Trump Daily Despicability" Entry

Today's entry into the Trump Despicability Index is no secret: Trump is racist.

And he knows how to play his racist audience for support.

Trump's racist assertions about Haley are lies

He's previously done so quite obviously: promoting Confederate "values" with his "Fine people, on both sides" comment about Charlottesville, or his inspiring of the ultra-racist and Trump-supporting Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during a Presidential debate when asked to condemn their repulsive tenets of white supremacy.

Now, just as he did for Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, and Kamala Harris, Trump has added Nikki Haley to his resume of racism by promoting the baseless and disgusting conspiracy lie that she, too, is ineligible for the presidency because she is--wait for it--not a US-born citizen.

Um, except she is (as are Obama, Cruz, and Harris).

Haley was born, indisputably, in the US--in Bamberg, South Carolina.

And, according to the US Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment (which also talks about disqualification for insurrection, btw), "All persons born...in the United States...are citizens of the United States..."

So, why does Trump do this?

Because he wants the racism daily double--he thinks his doing so will "delegitimize" a political opponent (who is not "white" like him and his followers) AND he gets to rally and infuriate his gullible and angry base of deplorable voters that are still burning from the "indignity" of a Black man being elected US President in 2008.

And, in this heavily MAGA anti-immigrant climate (well, non-European immigrant, anyway), it's just a bonus for Trump's rabid base that Haley's parents were both immigrants (who, btw, Trump says are "poisoning the blood of our country").

Hmm, also immigrants were Harris's parents and Cruz's father (Obama's Kenyan dad had been studying in the US with his Kansas-born wife when Barack was born). (Parenthetically, Melania's an immigrant, too, albeit of white, European heritage).

This isn't a coincidence.

And this isn't a mistake.

This is a former president and current candidate for that office purposely playing the racist card to pull the cockroaches from the dark recesses of our society out into the light so they will cast their votes for him.

THAT'S Trump's strategy.

If that's not despicable, nothing is. 

Of COURSE, there's US racism

Someone told me they believed the balance of power between white Americans and Black Americans has evened out since the 1960’s. After all, laws have been passed to reduce discrimination, right? There's more crime in Black-populated communities! And, for goodness sakes, we even elected a Black man to the presidency!  So, how in the world is it that anyone believes that Black Americans are still oppressed?

Simple (or maybe, more accurately, not so simple): a system’s balance of power doesn’t even out in a lifetime.

Or even many lifetimes.

And that power structure started with the first vile act of oppression.

A brief history:

Africans were ripped from their lives and enslaved (as, too, were Indigenous Americans, which is a topic for another day). Then, despite centuries of dehumanization and abuse—and with, because of the abhorrent system, little to no opportunity for education, community, or financial gain--their descendants persevered. The traitorous Confederacy (proclaiming Blacks were inferior and should be enslaved) lost, finally bringing those in enslavement the most basic of human rights, freedom.

But freedom isn’t equality.

Suddenly, there were 12% more free people in the US, Americans who, within the system, had no homes, no finances, and little education. The vast majority were relegated to living in poverty. The “system” didn’t help. Governments codified discrimination via Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, which—especially when combined with persisting attitudes and perceptions—denied educational, housing, voting, and job opportunities to Black Americans (who, because of skin color, were easily singled out). By the time of the Civil Rights push in the 1960s, Black Americans had already endured generations of inequality in the system which generally led to less opportunity for things such as education and financial gain (note: the wealth gap between Black Americans and white Americans continues to increase). Laws designed to reduce disparity and discrimination were passed, but racist and discriminatory attitudes persisted. And they still do. Generations of such policies and treatment that limit opportunity often lead to poverty, which, studies show, is a very difficult inheritance to overcome.

It's true that a higher percentage of people in poverty commit more crime than those not in poverty—regardless of ethnicity—often due to the psychological effects of hopelessness and desperation. Desperate, hopeless people sometimes also turn to drugs, which fuels their own criminal actions as well as that of a community’s drug trade and influence.

Sometimes, crime, instead, is a reaction to a perception of systemic inequality in things such as law enforcement and justice (such as in the summer of infrequently violent protests in reaction to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis).

And the system reinforces that perception. Those with less education—which correlates directly with poverty—receive longer jail sentences for the same crimes than those with more, likewise as do Black Americans compared to white Americans.

Even not-in-poverty Senator Tim Scott has discussed his experiences with systemic racism, including discriminatory judgments towards him from Capitol police or times (as an elected official) he was stopped for “nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or some other reason just as trivial.”

Regarding Obama’s election, which some say proves there is no racism in America, studies show his mere presence in the White House actually increased polarization along racial lines (he lost the white American vote by 12 points in 2008 and 20 points in 2012). In 2016, Clinton’s position as a champion for racial equality swung even more such voters to Trump.

Obviously, systemic racism is still here.  And despite what some politicians and their followers insist, Black Americans aren’t the ones pulling the strings. Ingrained societal perceptions and long-time “norms” set up and perpetuated by the white American majority are doing that. Similar patterns are found in the histories of traditionally oppressed people throughout the world.

And personal racism is here, too. In 2020, for example, the FBI noted a 40% increase in hate crimes toward Black Americans. Black Americans are still the number one target of hate crimes.

So, whether or not someone chooses to believe that racism towards Black Americans—in policies and attitudes—exists in the United States, research and history prove that, so horribly, it does.