Donald Trump is completely unfit to be president of the United States. Though he’s given us a plethora of evidence in the last seven months to corroborate this fact, the past week alone has served to remove any doubt. In a country which has a history of serious injustice and racial division and with race relations worsening by the day, Trump solidified his fate as Divider-In-Chief when he announced his support for the “very fine” white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville. At this point, all rational-thinking minorities, people of color and human beings in general should want nothing to do with him. Which is why it’s both bizarre and astoundingly tone deaf that the administration thinks that now is the time to have a White House sponsored conference for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). But that’s exactly what they are doing.
A White House official said that a Trump administration-backed conference for historically black colleges and universities will go ahead as planned next month.
In recent days, a Democratic lawmaker and prominent nonprofit donor to the schools recommended to the White House that the National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week Conference be postponed because of concerns “related to recent national events.” [...]
Johnny C. Taylor and Rep. Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, were among the voices who tried to get the White House to halt the planning. Taylor, the outgoing president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, wrote a letter to [Omarosa Manigault-Newman, assistant to the president and director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison] dated Aug. 18, saying that there was a “pretty strong consensus” in the HBCU leadership community that the White House should hold off until good faith measures — such as appointing an executive director and advisory board — showed that the White House had a “commitment to advancing the HBCU agenda.”
It’s pretty ridiculous to insist on holding a conference for a group of people that you’ve not only done absolutely nothing for, despite promises to the contrary, but whose livelihood and well-being you actively work against. Nevertheless, the administration persists.
Leading the charge, of course, is Omarosa Manigault-Newman, one of the few black people working in this administration who seems to be in charge of translating all things black to Trump. Omarosa consistently lies to everyone she comes into contact with about how Trump will do great things for the black community and for HBCUs. And her lies extend to this farce of a conference which she claims will be well attended.
“President Trump’s commitment to the HBCU community remains strong and unwavering,” Manigault-Newman told BuzzFeed News. “Registration is currently at capacity and we are looking forward to welcoming HBCU presidents, students, and guests.”
What’s really tragic here is that many HBCUs are often cash strapped so they rely on government funding to meet important needs at their institutions. This leads some of their presidents to compromise on values like integrity and work with a variety of potential funders and supporters—even though they are actively working to devalue black lives. Remember how HBCU administrators were inviting Republicans like Betsy DeVos who don’t give a crap about educating black students to speak at their graduations this spring? Remember how they shamed students for protesting these very inappropriate speakers and even threatened not to give them their diplomas? The respectability politics and need to chase funding runs deep in this crowd. So it won’t be surprising if people actually do show up to this sham of an event—not because they really want to but because they fear that if they don’t, it will mean a loss of funding down the road.
HBCUs rely on critical funding from the federal government, and few, if any, presidents would risk angering Trump with a public display. Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck, who is black, recently quit an administration council — and in return was the object of a vindictive tweet from Trump. Sources in the HBCU sphere said they wouldn’t put it past the administration to cut off funding in revenge.
Donald Trump is so vile that right after he unapologetically announced his support for the white supremacy demonstrated in Charlottesville, his team announced his intention to force themselves on HBCUs—despite their request to table this conference until a good faith effort has been made to show he intends to do better by them. It’s abusive and gross but is in line with everything we’ve come to expect from this administration. The conference also takes place the very same week of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference. No doubt the planners of this event assumed that since “the blacks” would all be in Washington for this event it would be convenient for them to hang out with this terrible president and his friends for three days. But since we know that Trump’s ego is so massive that he prefers to only speak to crowds that adore him, there is a bright side. Maybe he won’t show up after all.