Source: Anadolu / Getty
Last week, I wrote about MAGA Republicans banking on racist Black stereotypes to attract Black voters for Donald Trump. It started with Fox News hosts and other assorted white conservative Black friend solicitors speculating that Trump’s mugshot from his RICO indictment in Georgia would attract Black support because Black people love things associated with criminality, and more recently, a Fox News contributor who claimed Trump’s ugly-as-hell Homelander 45 sneakers would bring all the Blacks to the yard because “Black people love sneakers.”
Well, on the same day that op-ed was published, Trump was speaking at the Black Conservative Federation Gala in South Carolina, where the guy who spearheaded the propaganda-reliant attack on critical race theory—an academic framework to examine systemic racism in America—said Black voters will align with him because he too has faced injustice at the hands of our legal system.
Fun fact: I spent all of this week in SC trying because I wanted to write about all of these Black people we keep hearing about who are becoming Republicans.
Nothing. https://t.co/9samgCXzXd
— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) February 24, 2024
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said Friday. “And a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there.”
Now, to be fair, this time Trump wasn’t citing a stereotype, he’s citing an actual thing Black people have been talking about, protesting against and suffering for generations—and it’s arguably more offensive than when he was citing stereotypes.
White people stereotyping non-white people is just garden-variety American racism that Black people are so used to that we barely wince at it anymore. But this right here is a particularly manipulative form of racism that should be likened to a slave master gaslighting slaves by pretending to share in their lack of freedom. Again, Trump is the orangey-white nationalist who made CRT-bashing popular with Republicans and white conservatives. He also issued an executive order banning diversity training in the workplace during his presidency, and even now, he’s promising to end all DEI programs across America if he’s elected again. So, out of one side of his neck, Trump is pretending to find common ground with Black people because we “have been hurt so badly and discriminated against,” and out of the other side, he’s promising to put an end to every effort to correct racial discrimination, which he has always denied or downplayed the existence of until now when it benefits his campaign.
Also, he’s still running with the racist stereotypes.
“When I did the mug shot in Atlanta, that mug shot is No. 1,” Trump said, adding: “You know who embraced it more than anyone else? The Black population.”
Setting aside how Trump appears to be pretending some kind of Billboard mugshot ranking exists that put his mugshot at No. 1, there is absolutely no evidence that Black people “embraced” his mugshot at all, let alone “more than anyone else.”
Of course, one shouldn’t expect an audience of Black conservatives to point out or even take note of Trump’s hypocrisy and overt racism, even after he made the following remark:
“The lights are so bright in my eyes I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones. That’s how far I’ve come.”
That’s an interesting divergence from white conservatives’ typical “I don’t see color” narrative, and of course, the comment was met with laughs because if there’s one thing Black conservatives are good for, it’s allowing white conservatives to laugh in their faces, like when TurningPoint USA founder Charlie Kirk insisted that Black people find “gang-banging” more acceptable than supporting Trump and his Black conservative guest chuckled and nodded along like a sambo bobblehead.
Pierre Wilson said his mom called him “the embarrassment to the family” for supporting Trump.” Charlie Kirk then asked if Black people think Trump support is worse than gang banging.
Wilson is director of Blexit, TPUSA’s Black outreach arm. pic.twitter.com/cFIuUl396l
— PatriotTakes (@patriottakes) January 23, 2024
Actually, I probably jumped the gun a bit when I said Trump was speaking to an “audience of Black conservatives,” because, based on virtually all of the video footage we’ve seen, the Black Conservative Federation Gala was missing one seemingly important thing: Black people.
So they seated a black person or two at every table? Charming.
— Adolph Marx (@ColumbusArea) February 25, 2024
All I see are a HANDFUL of black folks Mother Harriett would have left behind. Maga can keep em.
— I the African in my American (@AlabamaBlue22) February 24, 2024
Also mostly white people in attendance pic.twitter.com/beK8HLFbKj
— billyb (@pipercat55) February 24, 2024
Seriously, was this an event for Black conservatives, or was it a Black friend show-and-tell for white conservatives? If Black people are flocking to Trump, where was the flock in SC? Why does every photo of the audience at this event for Black MAGA minions look like it could be a page in a Where’s Black Waldo? book.
Anyway, no pandering Trump speech would be complete without Trump taking racist shots at former President Barack Obama, who lives rent-free in the Oval Office of Trump’s head despite him being out of office for close to a decade.
“I have to tell you, Black president, but I got $1.7 billion less,” Trump said, repeating his lies about economic gains under his presidency, which, even when truthful, were largely due to him inheriting an economy on the rise after you know who was president. “Would you rather have the Black president or the white president who got $1.7 billion off the price?” (Again, why is he giving these people an imaginary choice between himself and the Black guy who is not running for president?)
“I think they want the white guy,” he added as his Black people-bereft audience cheered.
All Trump and his MAGA cult do is lie and try to convince Black people that white nationalism is what’s good for them. Apparently, that strategy isn’t working out for them as well as they think.
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The post Donald Trump Stereotypes African Americans At Black Conservative Event With Largely White Audience appeared first on NewsOne.
