What a difference a day makes. President Donald Trump was just placating his white supremacist base Wednesday by tweeting his opposition to renaming military bases named after Confederate generals. Now, he apparently wants to educate us all about “the progress that has been made" for Black people, according to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She told reporters Thursday that Juneteenth is a “meaningful day” for the president. Although McEnany didn’t even mention what the day signifies, the holiday is meant to commemorate when many slaves learned they were free, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation legally freed them on Jan. 1, 1863.
"The African American community is very near and dear to his heart," McEnany said of Trump. “At these rallies he often shares the great work he has done for minority communities.”
Funny, I seem to remember him describing a Black man in attendance at one 2016 rally as a "thug" and calling for him to be thrown out. At another rally that same year, he asked Black voters in a heartfelt plea: "What do you have to lose? You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs."
Four years later, Trump again relied on stereotypical depictions of Black people as violent when he described protests happening in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death as "riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country."
He bragged about his work to continue using military bases as emblems to honor Confederate history and tweeted Wednesday that his "Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations."
But according to McEnany, Trump is “working on rectifying injustices” and wants to use Juneteenth to “share some of the progress that's been made as we look forward and more that needs to be done."
She said, "this president got criminal justice reform done.” And just like that, she lost me and apparently many others who are interpreting his Juneteenth rally as nothing more than a political ploy insensitively set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa is where white supremacists burned and terrorized the wealthiest Black community in the country in 1921.
"This isn't just a wink to white supremacists -- he's throwing them a welcome home party," Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted Thursday.
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