Part of what is ignored about ESPN spokesperson Jemele Hill’s set of tweets this week which included accusations that Donald Trump is a White Supremacist is the fact that one of her tweet linked to a recent article in the Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates which functionally said the exact same thing, we evidence and examples.
His political career began in advocacy of birtherism, that modern recasting of the old American precept that black people are not fit to be citizens of the country they built. But long before birtherism, Trump had made his worldview clear. He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.
It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true—his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power. Trump inaugurated his campaign by casting himself as the defender of white maidenhood against Mexican “rapists,” only to be later alleged by multiple accusers, and by his own proud words, to be a sexual violator himself. White supremacy has always had a perverse sexual tint. Trump’s rise was shepherded by Steve Bannon, a man who mocks his white male critics as “cucks.” The word, derived from cuckold, is specifically meant to debase by fear and fantasy—the target is so weak that he would submit to the humiliation of having his white wife lie with black men. That the slur cuck casts white men as victims aligns with the dicta of whiteness, which seek to alchemize one’s profligate sins into virtue. So it was with Virginia slaveholders claiming that Britain sought to make slaves of them. So it was with marauding Klansmen organized against alleged rapes and other outrages. So it was with a candidate who called for a foreign power to hack his opponent’s email and who now, as president, is claiming to be the victim of “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”
As Coates displays Hill did not invent her charges against Trump, the persons he surrounds himself with such as Steve Bannon and his “Economic Nationalism” (which is different in implementation from White Nationalism how exactly?) not to mention his active promotion of the alt-Right in the online pages of Breitbart, Steve Miller and his creepy relish for bashing and demonizing immigrants, Jeff Sessions who has a long history of blocking pro-immigrant legislation such as the Dream Act and was once blocked from becoming a federal judge because of his own use of racial slurs, and is currently dismantling the police reforms intended to repair the relationship between police and the urban community which had been put in place under Obama, and Sebastian Gorka who proudly wears a badge of the Hungarian Nazi collaborators and claimed that Trump didn’t speak about the Minnesota mosque attack because it may have been a “false flag” by Liberals.
There are many sets of analysis and polls that indicate that far higher percentage of Trump’s most ardent supporters hold negative views about non-White persons, and that that negativity is rising not waning.
These things are well documented. Yet one ESPN reporter saying so in public is somehow worst than all of what Trump has ever said (including claiming on twitter that Barack Obama was himself a “racist”) and done (such as repeatedly tweeting false memes which originate on White Supremacist Sites) in his entire life.
Here is Ta-Nehisi Coates discussing exactly this subject from last night’s edition of All In with Chris Hayes.
In part two they continue to explore the idea that there is no world or plane of reality in which Barack Obama could have said the things that Trump has said, and either become or remained President. White men like Trump or Glenn Beck can say “Obama is a Racist” without any facts or evidence what-so-ever ignoring the fact he was raised by his white mother and Grand parents and not have the White House call for them to be fired from the Apprentice or Fox News, or Kurt Schilling can say three bigoted things in a row at ESPN before being sanctioned, but a black ESPN sportscaster or for that matter Colin Kaepernick obviously can’t go out on the very short limb of stating the obvious and easily proavable?
Here is Coates again in a previous discussion about “the Deplorables”.
Coates and Hayes latest discussion was outlined in The Hill.
"With George Bush's policies, I could make an argument for how they affect black people in a negative way. You know what I mean? But I wouldn't argue that he's a white supremacist. I wouldn't argue that Mitt Romney is a white supremacist," Coates said.
"Donald Trump is a particular, specific thing," he continued. "And I think there's quite a bit of evidence to back up the charge."
Coates rattled off a list of actions that he said suggest that the president might have racist tendencies, listing in particular Trump's past suggestion that former President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and his comment that a federal judge was not fit to preside over a case involving the now-defunct Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.
"I'm willing to have that debate," Coates said on whether the moves indicated white supremacy.
There is in fact a litany of evidence that Donald Trump is a White Supremacist, from his weird initial lack of response to neo-Nazis and Confederates who committed acts of terrorism in Charlottesville, to his later bizarre and unfounded claim that “both sides had bad dudes” and the “alt-Left went charging at the neo-Nazis” without providing a single example of this so-called “charge.” He has pardoned an openly bigoted Sheriff who was convicted of being a bigot, tweeted about all the Muslim terror attacks in the last two years in London, Paris and Nice but he still to this very day has not tweeted or commented on terror attacks which has targeted Muslims, including the car that was driven into a crowd of worshipers as they exited a mosque or when a gunman killed two immigrant workers in Kansas after demanding to the prove their visa status. White Supremacists have named checked Trump in their threats to bomb Muslim students, so clearly they think he’s on their side. Trump’s Muslim ban policies have led to people such as Muhammad Ali Jr. being wrongfully detained twice. Who’s next Kareem Abdul Jabbar?
During a discussion on how to cover Trump, the former New York Observer editor, Elizabeth Spiers, claimed she told Kushner that she had serious problems with Trump’s repeated claims that Obama was not born in the U.S., to which Kushner allegedly told her: "He doesn't really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they'll buy it."
So if you expose an idea based in White Supremacy purely to get people who are prone to believe in White Supremacist ideas to like you — can you really claim that you aren’t essentially promoting White Supremacy? Is it better to be a believer in those ideas, or to be a person who willing to exploit the bigoted beliefs of those persons for you own personal gain?
If he quacks like a supremacist, and walks like a supremacist, is he then not a supremacist?
Perhaps.
Clearly the Trumpanista’s like to travel inside the realms of White Supremacy partly to attract those fellow travelers within the GOP, but also at the same time he attempts to keep some distance from full-on Bunkerism so that he can share and express their screaming outrage at being called out for their racist words and actions.
Let’s recall again Bannon’s claim that “Trump triggers Liberals” with his statements on purpose. He baits Liberals to overreact, which to an extent Hill did perfectly by ignoring the nuances of White Supremacy, which in turn energizes and validates the long festering frustrations of whites who are tired of being accused of racism, but still have no real problem with the idea of “Rapist Mexicans” pouring into the country and “New Jersey Muslims who cheered 9/11” and that the “Bowling Green Massacre” is a real thing despite having absolutely no evidence for any of that. Sure, they aren't racist at all, except for quite a bit when you really get down to it. They don’t think of themselves are “racist” because even with that — they carry a stereotype of it, a picture in their head of Archie Bunker or a hooded member of the KKK or a confederate flag t-shirted guy with a mullet.
Sure, they’re NOT racist like those guys but most of them still to this very day do believe that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya then magically ferreted over the seas into Hawaii by his 17-year-old college student mother. Seagulls must have done it. Really big ones. They still believe that Obama banned Iraqi refuges and developed the list of countries that Trump used in his ban, when in fact Ted Cruz did that.
The point here isn’t to prove that they are or they aren’t racist, bigotry and White Supremacy aren’t absolute 0% or 100% issues. There are levels of racism and bias, there is a spectrum of how deeply one can be or isn’t steeped in racism. It can be very little or it can be quite a lot, but it’s almost never absolutely none or totally all. It’s absolutely true that a person who believes bigoted ideas may not necessarily feel that way about every single person of a particular cultural/religious/ethnic faction.
There is the “One of the Good Ones” syndrome.
People can feel for example that Mexicans are a general drain on the nation, but then still employ or be close friends with a Mexican person. People can feel that Black people are ill-mannered, uneducated and violent — but they’ll still go out to dinner with one of them and have a good time. Bill O’reilly did exactly that when went to Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem with Al Sharpton and then praised how “great” it was, how it was such a nice place and nobody was running around screaming “Mother-fucker I want more Iced Tea” all the time. Ya see, “Sylvia’s” was on of the good ones, and Bill was genuinely astonished that people didn’t see it the way he did.
Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O'Reilly added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'"
Yeah, not a single person was doing that. Just imagine if White people knew that Black people were capable of such a thing. Civility. The mind boggles. I mean, particularly when — according to O’Reilly — many black people are difficult to employ because they are Ill-educated and have tattoos on their faces.
While grilling Donald Trump on Monday evening about how he’d boost employment for black youth, Bill O'Reilly interrupted to make the truly bizarre claim that many black people are “ill-educated and have tattoos on their foreheads.”
For what it’s worth, a quick Google Image search for “forehead tattoo” brings up a deluge of white prison inmates and neo-Nazis with ink on their brow.
Nevertheless, the O’Reilly Factor host made the bold and wholly unverified assertion after Trump declared he will sway the black vote with a purely economic message. “If you look at President Obama, he’s been a president for almost 8 years,” he said, “and with African-American youth, you have a 59 percent unemployment.”
O’Reilly and for that matter Trump feel that saying ridiculous things like this is fine, because they have black “friends” like Sharpton or Ben Carson or Omarosa. They can’t be sexists because they have women working for them, despite all the numerous accusations of harassment and/or assault against both of them.
Here’s one thing we all of should remember about people who occasionally say bigoted things but also have minority friends. Dylann Storm Roof had black friends too, particularly on Facebook.
We’re still trying to comprehend a twisted mind that thought up something as evil as gunning down innocent people in a church. But here’s a glimpse into his psyche: Dylann Roof – the suspect – seemed to have had two kinds of “friends” on Facebook: cute high school girls who didn’t give him the time of day, and black guys who aspire to be hip-hop artists.
His Facebook page has since been removed. But before it was taken down, I combed through the list of 81 “friends” to see if anyone could tell me anything about him. I couldn’t help but notice that Roof had a penchant for befriending black people who post over-the-top photos: One of his “friends” was a self-described rapper with a mouth full of gold teeth and a stack of $100 bills. Another worked at “X-Rated Mafia Records.” A third was a young black woman who posted numerous pictures of male genitalia, accompanied by belittling comments.
Roof not only had black friends, he told them exactly what he was planning to do — they just didn’t believe he was serious because he didn’t act racist to them in their face.
Almost immediately following the heinous killings, a white acquaintance, Joey Meek contacted the FBI and told reporters that Roof, also 21, was looking "to start a civil war." He said in the weeks preceding, he and Roof drank vodka together while Roof complained that "Blacks were taking over the world" and that "someone needed to do something about it for the white race," CBS News reports.
Another classmate described him as a "pill popper" who "told racist jokes."
Scriven didn't experience that. "Everybody's making him out to be racist but here I am in front of you today as a Black man and telling you that I look at him no different today than what I looked him last week because he never said anything racist to me," he said.
So any black friend of Trump’s who says “he doesn’t act racist to me” we can just remember Scriven and Roof. How’d that work out?
It’s Just like a lot of people just keep telling us Trump “wasn’t serious” when he’s said all these vile things over the years, but then again his actions clearly tell us something different.
That Donald John Trump has repeatedly spouted White Supremacist rhetoric and memes is undeniable. That he has others around him who also display White Supremacist tendencies is also easy to prove, even if also has more than a few “racism friend shields” in place to deflect that accusation. It is debatable whether he truly believes these bigoted ideas in his own heart or he is simply using them to pander to his base, who also seem to have these tendencies.
In the end, that is a distinction without a difference. Whether he is a racist, or simply a pandering racist whisperer doesn't matter in the end. Even though he says he “condemns” White Supremacy it doesn’t much matter, what matters is the fact that when he says that neo-Nazis and admitted White Supremacists don’t. believe. him.
Perhaps most of us shouldn’t believe his weak condemnations either, particular when all of his actions show — he doesn’t really take them nearly as seriously as he does the danger of “Muslims and Mexicans.”
Perhaps he long ago told us who he is with his actions, from the Central Park Five to his Birtherism, and it’s that which we should believe.
No, Donald Trump isn’t Archie Bunker, he’s not David Duke, or Donald Sterling, or Paula Deen, or Phil Roberson. He’s not even Richard Spencer, Milo or Chris Cantwell.
But yes, he’s a White Supremacist Lite.
Less N-words, but more bad terrible bigoted ideas.
Saturday, Sep 16, 2017 · 10:57:23 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Trump biographer David Cay Johnston had a bit to say about Trump being the “embodiment of being a racist.”
“He’s a racist, ” Johnson stated immediately. “He’s been the subject of a judicial administrative hearings about this. He’s made awful comments over the years. He is the embodiment of being a racist just as Miss Huckabee Sanders’ comments the other day are the embodiment of censorship and should have upset every single American who has even a modest amount of respect for our Constitution.”
‘Wow,” host Reid responded.
Yeah, we know.