The Daily Mail reported this morning that Donald Trump believes Black Lives Matter may have had a hand in a group of African-American pastors pulling their supposed endorsement of him for the U.S. presidency. According to the U.K.-based publication, Trump was on today’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC, saying, “Probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘Oh, you shouldn't be meeting with Trump because he believes all lives matter.’”
Oh, Donald. Really? Um, no, dear, that would not be the reason why.
This all started last week, when Trump’s camp stated that he would be meeting with a group of 100 African-American pastors and that afterward, they would be endorsing him in in his presidential bid.
Once word of that leaked out, it was not met with a favorable response.
A group of 100 African-American “fellow clergy, community organizers, scholars, socially aware Christians, and/or concerned voters” penned an open letter to Trump in Ebony magazine where they called on the pastors to think long and hard before they met with the real estate mogul. The letter asked the group to consider the record of Trump’s rhetoric against the radical tradition of the black church in African-American history, as well as their roles as the caretakers of the souls and spirits of black people.
One excerpt from the letter states, “He routinely engages in the kind of rhetoric that brings out the worst sorts of white racist aggression, not only toward Black people, but also toward Mexican-Americans and Muslim-Americans, too. Surely, we can agree that this kind of unloving and violent language does not reflect the politics of the Christ we profess?”
The letter ended with the declaration that “To stand with Jesus is to have great skepticism about systems of power and a willingness to question the motives of the powerful.”
Needless to say, some of the pastors who had been invited to Trump’s meeting started distancing themselves left and right. The “presidential endorsement press conference” was then downgraded to a “private meeting.”
Ohio pastor Darrell Scott—who initiated the meeting—took responsibility for the “endorsement” fiasco, saying there was a miscommunication with Trump’s staff. He also said the group has been called “Uncle Toms, sellouts, coons and prostitutes on a pole.” Basically, every kind of name except “children of God.”
This latest round of shenanigans came after Trump supporters assaulted a Black Lives Matter activist at a Birmingham, Alabama, rally and the candidate’s grossly inaccurate and racist tweet about black crime statistics. The latter was so horrid that even Bill O’Reilly himself got on The Donald for putting out less-than-factual information.
Bill. O’Reilly. Let that one sink in for a minute.
It is all of this, dear Donald, that might kinda sorta be the reason why those pastors pulled their (non) endorsements of you.