Trump's insults of black Americans are disgusting and dangerous
President Trump, who
regularly makes a point of personally insulting public figures who challenge or
displease him in any way, taps into an especially toxic well of vitriol when
aiming his attacks at black Americans. This week alone, Trump berated CNN correspondent Abby Phillip ("What
a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid
questions.") He said of April Ryan, a reporter and CNN contributor who
has covered the White House for 21 years: "You talk about somebody that's
a loser. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing."
And at a post-election
press conference, when Yamiche Alcindor of "PBS NewsHour" began to ask about
accusations that his rhetoric may have emboldened violent white nationalist
groups, Trump interrupted with, "I don't know why you say that. That is
such a racist question." The three women -- all
of them gifted, accomplished professionals -- will be covering politics long
after Trump has left the White House. They join a long list of athletes,
entertainers, journalists and politicians who Trump routinely attacks as
"dumb," "not qualified" or some such insult.
None of this is subtle
or secret; that would defeat the purpose. For Trump, loudly and publicly
denigrating black figures is the whole point. He
is a classic example of a backlash politician: a leader who exploits real or
perceived white anxieties by exhibiting a flamboyant hostility to the political
and economic demands of black Americans. We've had a string of such politicians
since the civil rights movement, and that is neither surprising nor
coincidental: Like many social revolutions, America's expansion of civil rights
in the 1960s and '70s gave rise to a potent counterrevolution.
We saw it in Ronald
Reagan's decision to launch
his 1980 campaign for president at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia,
Mississippi, where an infamous triple murder of civil rights
organizers had occurred in 1964. Reagan didn't mention the martyred civil
rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner or James Chaney in his speech,
which was all about state's rights. As columnist Bob Herbert
later noted: "Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was
signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all
knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial
hatred knew. And Reagan knew. He was tapping out the code.".. read more:
