Happy Black History Month, everyone. Have you heard about the greatness and persecution of Donald J. Trump?
The president of the United States held an “African-American History Month listening session” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. He began with a five-minute monologue that was more about himself — his campaign, his alleged mistreatment by the media, his popularity — than it was about African-Americans.
Trump’s third paragraph, for example, started with a single sentence about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It was followed by 10 sentences of grievance about his alleged mistreatment by the media.
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Trump said King’s “incredible example is unique in American history.” Immediately, he pivoted to his oft-repeated gripe about a Time reporter’s erroneous claim — which the reporter quickly corrected and apologized for — that he had removed a King bust from the Oval Office after moving in.
“You read all about Dr. Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office. And it turned out that that was fake news,” Trump said.
“The statue is cherished. It’s one of the favourite things — and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, and we have Jefferson, and we have Dr. Martin Luther King. And we have other (sic). But they said the statue, the bust, of Dr. Martin Luther King was taken out of the office. And it was never even touched. So I think it was a disgrace, but that’s the way the press is. It’s very unfortunate.”
Trump did not spend any more time on the other black icons he mentioned. About Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century slavery abolitionist, writer and speaker, Trump said: “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more, I notice.”
Trump, who spent years promoting a racist lie about Barack Obama’s citizenship, is
overwhelmingly unpopular in the black community. His latest comments were greeted with astonishment, alarm and anger among black Americans, among others, on Twitter.
“OH. MY. EFFING. GAWD. Trump’s Black History Month speech is an abomination,” said Sil Lai Abrams, author of the book
Black Lotus, saying it involved “racism” and “tokenism.”
“This transcript is barely English,” said Kwanza Osajyefo, creator of the comic book
BLACK.
“Donald Trump doesn’t care about black people,” wrote Kwame Opam, an editor at The Verge, referencing a famous Kanye West line about then-president George W. Bush.
Even former first daughter Chelsea Clinton waded in, suggesting she was speechless: “This is...this is...”
Attendees of the gathering — which Trump opened by saying, “This is Black History Month, so this is our little breakfast” — all appeared to be vocal Trump supporters, such as incoming housing secretary Ben Carson, former Apprentice reality villain Omarosa Manigault, pastor Darrell Scott and television commentator Paris Dennard.
Trump managed to turn even his introductions into an attack on a media outlet he doesn’t like.
“Paris has done an amazing job in a very hostile CNN community; he’s all by himself. Seven people and Paris. I’ll take Paris over the seven. But I don’t watch CNN, so I don’t get to see you as much. I don’t like watching fake news. But Fox has treated me very nice, wherever Fox is, thank you. We’re going to need better schools, and we need ‘em soon. We need more jobs, we need better wages, a lot better wages,” Trump said.
Trump did offer some words of praise for black Americans, saying “their story is one of unimaginable sacrifice, hard work, and faith in America.” Returning to his association of black communities with crime, for which he received black criticism during the campaign, he also promised to “work very hard on the inner city,” calling black communities so unsafe it is “terrible.”
And then he continued on his favourite subject: his own success.
“If you remember, I wasn’t going to do well with the African-American community, and after they heard me speaking and talking about the inner city and lots of other things, we ended up getting, I won’t go into details, but we ended up getting substantially more than other candidates who had run in the past years,” he said. “And now we’re going to take that to new levels. I want to thank my television star over here — Omarosa’s actually a very nice person. Nobody knows that.”
Trump’s administration has also managed to generate anger with a Holocaust remembrance statement (which omitted any mention of Jewish people) and condolence remarks on the Quebec City mosque massacre (which his spokesman used to justify his travel ban targeting Muslims). He has only been president a week and a half.
