# Donald Trump: The First White President \[article in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725 "2017-09-07T13:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/621 "2017-09-29T17:59:52Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Of course it does. > > If the centuries of oppression explain Black societal problems today, why were the effects of the legacy of oppression not more obvious during Jim Crow? They were quite obvious. Disparities were huge in educational achievements, poverty, income, wealth, etc. and various other statistical indicators. ---
**Author:** ![Warm\_blood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Warm\_blood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Warm_blood)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/622 "2017-09-29T18:03:42Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > iiandyiiii, > Expanding international trade and international alliances has largely been a bipartisan policy for 70 years especially at the Presidential level. Can you name a major party Presidential candidate whose views you think have been similar to Trump ? I don’t think anyone who has won the nomination has even come close to Trump’s views. > > As for birtherism I think Slate Star Codex said it [best](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/): > > The bottom line is Trump is not a normal politician or even a normal person and you can’t understand him by normal standards. > > This is not meant as an excuse since I agree he is a terrible person. I don’t think my overall opinion of him is any higher than you or Coates for that matter. I just think it’s important to understand him and his appeal precisely to develop the best strategy to fight him. Yeah, I guess it’s all a coincidence that he practiced racial discrimination when it came to providing housing. It’s a coincidence that he has a record of saying blatantly racist things for decades. It’s a coincidence that he agitated for five black teenage boys accused (NOT convicted, just accused with no evidence) of a crime to be killed via full page ads in prominent newspapers. No, he’s just a wacky guy, but certainly not a racist! The author of the article you’re using to prop up your argument is either a complete idiot incapable of understanding what racism is in its most basic form or he’s a Trump supporter utilizing Olympian feats of mental gymnastics to argue that he’s not racist (I’m leaning on the latter being mostly the case). His argument is that Trump insults everyone, therefore his racist comments aren’t racist. His facile, tokenistic gestures of inclusion like tweeting a picture of himself eating a taco bowl as proof that he "loves Hispanics”, making campaign stops at black churches and holding a rainbow flag as a way of proving that he cares for the LGBT community apparently should totally override all the comments and policies that do real harm to those particular groups of people. Sorry, but you just destroyed your own argument by citing this crap to back you up. You would’ve done yourself more of a favor by posting a Fox News article. I haven’t read the entire thread, but some good and fruitful discussions are going on here, even amidst some of the predictable, eye-roll worthy posts. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/623 "2017-09-29T18:23:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They were quite obvious. Disparities were huge in educational achievements, poverty, income, wealth, etc. and various other statistical indicators. No doubt. But the point is the trends were more favorable. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/624 "2017-09-29T18:51:57Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No doubt. But the point is the trends were more favorable. There could be lots of reasons for that, including failures or even counterproductive (or malevolent) government policy since. But that possibility doesn’t absolve the overall systemic biases from responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/625 "2017-09-29T19:00:11Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > There’s no way to control _other people’s_ sexual behavior. What legislation do you propose that would control someone else’s sexual behavior? > > I would imagine that poverty may also correlate pretty well with rates of illegitimate birth. Perhaps not being poor is working? The rate of illegitimacy for poor Asians is probably higher than the illegitimacy rate for rich Asians but but are significantly lower than the rate of illegitimate birth for blacks. We can’t legislate a better culture but until and unless black leaders can admit that the culture is broken and commit themselves to fixing it… ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/626 "2017-09-29T19:06:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The rate of illegitimacy for poor Asians is probably higher than the illegitimacy rate for rich Asians but but are significantly lower than the rate of illegitimate birth for blacks. > > We can’t legislate a better culture but until and unless black leaders can admit that the culture is broken and commit themselves to fixing it… That’s assuming causation, when “broken culture” (whatever that actually means) might be caused by all the other factors (systemic biases, policies and practices, etc.), and might not be fixable unless and until those other factors are fixed. And of course many black leaders spend much or most of their time addressing and trying to improve issues and behaviors within the black community. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/627 "2017-09-29T19:07:13Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There could be lots of reasons for that, including failures or even counterproductive (or malevolent) government policy since. But that possibility doesn’t absolve the overall systemic biases from responsibility. Its difficult for you to come out and say that the root causes for that portion of the black population that are struggling are deep and complex. That the blame lies both externally and internally. All this finger-pointing is actually taking much needed time and resources away from fixing the problem. One simple thing anyone can do to actually help would be to volunteer to work with kids. That would be much more productive than essay reading and mb posting. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/628 "2017-09-29T19:08:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Your own cite gives a lot of possible reasons, including differing access to effective birth control (Planned Parenthood isn’t literally everywhere) like IUDs, due to lack of income and health insurance, among other factors. > > What’s the alternative explanation? Black women are horrible sluts with no sense of responsibility? Native American women too, I suppose, since they’re also at the bottom in these statistics – I guess it’s just coincidence that the two groups in the US that were treated by far and overwhelmingly the worst are represented at the bottom of so many of these statistics. It couldn’t be that generations and centuries of such incredible brutality, only ending very recently (and probably not entirely), might have ramifications today… or maybe that has something to do with it? Slavery and genocide may be the source of this broken culture but it is not an excuse for holding onto and defending this broken culture. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/629 "2017-09-29T19:17:14Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There could be lots of reasons for that, including failures or even counterproductive (or malevolent) government policy since. But that possibility doesn’t absolve the overall systemic biases from responsibility. It would be quite strange for the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to be more potent today than in 1955. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/630 "2017-09-29T20:29:29Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Its difficult for you to come out and say that the root causes for that portion of the black population that are struggling are deep and complex. That the blame lies both externally and internally. All this finger-pointing is actually taking much needed time and resources away from fixing the problem. One simple thing anyone can do to actually help would be to volunteer to work with kids. That would be much more productive than essay reading and mb posting. The causes certainly are deep and complex. Blame for white supremacism and systemic bias lies entirely with white supremacists, along with those who continue on white supremacist policies and practices (whether knowingly or not), and those systems and institutions that continue them. I have no illusions that there are easy or simple fixes to any of these problems. I endorse volunteering to work with children, and I personally could do a lot more to help many disadvantaged people. I have some leisure time and extra money that I save for my use. That has nothing to do with any of Coates or my arguments, however. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/631 "2017-09-29T20:30:41Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Slavery and genocide may be the source of this broken culture but it is not an excuse for holding onto and defending this broken culture. I don’t see what this has to do with my post. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/632 "2017-09-29T20:31:42Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It would be quite strange for the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to be more potent today than in 1955. Yes, it would. This isn’t the case, though – so many disparities have narrowed significantly (or even spectacularly for things like educational achievement) since then. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/633 "2017-09-29T20:46:32Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The causes certainly are deep and complex. Blame for white supremacism and systemic bias lies entirely with white supremacists, along with those who continue on white supremacist policies and practices (whether knowingly or not), and those systems and institutions that continue them. I have no illusions that there are easy or simple fixes to any of these problems. > > I endorse volunteering to work with children, and I personally could do a lot more to help many disadvantaged people. I have some leisure time and extra money that I save for my use. That has nothing to do with any of Coates or my arguments, however. Still don’t want to admit that part of the blame lies with the people who won’t change behavior/ways of thinking? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/634 "2017-09-29T20:48:58Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Still don’t want to admit that part of the blame lies with the people who won’t change behavior/ways of thinking? For white supremacism, or systemic bias? Of course black people don’t bear the blame for those things. Do you feel differently? If you’re asking if I think that some black people might be to blame for some bad circumstances in black communities, then very obviously that is true. Bad black people, and bad white people, are responsible for the bad things they do. But that has nothing to do with white supremacism and systemic/institutional biases in society. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/635 "2017-09-29T22:16:10Z")
Interesting discussion. I want to add though that I have been reading TH Coates articles for years and one thing I see is the man basically lives isolated from the world in New York and never really gets out and travels around to look at the state of the country. He only seems to talk to people online - he never gets out and travels around to actually meet people and rub shoulders with others. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/636 "2017-09-29T22:47:32Z")
That’s a great point. Really, he should go some place like Paris to appreciate why America is great. Or maybe Vermont, if you’re not into the whole big city thing. Like, he could even write about it. Lengthily. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/637 "2017-09-29T23:11:17Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > We are back to ignoring the period in history during which Black Americans were building strong communities without the help of Good Whitey. > > Thomas Sowell: > > "The poverty rate among blacks was nearly cut in half in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, a record unmatched since then, despite the expansion of welfare state policies in the 1960s. > > Unemployment among black 16 and 17-year-old males was 12 percent back in 1950. Yet unemployment rates among black 16 and 17-year-old males has not been less than 30 percent for any year since 1970 — and has been over 40 percent in some of those years. > > Not only was unemployment among blacks in general lower before the liberal welfare state policies expanded in the 1960s, rates of imprisonment of blacks were also lower then, and most black children were raised in two-parent families. At one time, a higher percentage of blacks than whites were married and working." > > The data is out there. > > Blacks were hampered by the actions of Good Whitey, yet an ideological drive to control has led Good Whitey to ignore what actually worked for Black folks in the past, the market economy, and instead push a suite of programs that has hurt Black folks. Sowell, of course, is ignoring all sorts of factors for the sake of making his claims. In the period of the 20 years prior to the 1960s, the U.S. hired anyone who wanted a job so as to support the war effort, then came out of the war as the only major economy that had not suffered significant infrastructure damage, thus providing a constantly growing labor force that accepted blacks out of a need for workers. Through the 1960s, automation removed many jobs from the pool of needed labor. Simultaneously, both Europe and Asia began cutting into the U.S. industrial markets, further reducing the demand for labor. With less demand, it was much easier to selectively discriminate in hiring. When I was in high school and college, I did not have a single classmate who did not get a summer job–jobs that either provided an entrance to a full-time job or provided the finances to complete college and find work outside the manual labor market. Today, the jobs that we held are gone. One does not work one’s way into job that will provide support for a family by bagging groceries, shelving stock, or offering fries with an order. (And those jobs are fewer than the previously available industrial jobs.) Such jobs certainly do not pay for current college tuitions. Sowell was able to use the GI bill and employment as a Civil Servant to pay for an education that took him away from the labor market that was open to most kids, white or black, and his cherry-picked numbers, applied to the majority of kids, are disingenuous, at best. His two-parent family allusion is also a bit disingenuous when one recalls that a significant pressure to break up families were the rules regarding welfare demanded by right wing legislators, that denied welfare to families with an adult male in the home–providing an impetus for men to abandon their families to allow their wives and children to eat. The black community should be promoting more responsibility among the young and simply crying “racism” as the response to every problem, does not help. But simplistic claims with implied _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ claims such as those of Sowell are also no help. ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/638 "2017-09-29T23:26:03Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > We are back to ignoring the period in history during which Black Americans were building strong communities without the help of Good Whitey. > > Thomas Sowell: > > "The poverty rate among blacks was nearly cut in half in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, a record unmatched since then, despite the expansion of welfare state policies in the 1960s. > > Unemployment among black 16 and 17-year-old males was 12 percent back in 1950. Yet unemployment rates among black 16 and 17-year-old males has not been less than 30 percent for any year since 1970 — and has been over 40 percent in some of those years. > > Not only was unemployment among blacks in general lower before the liberal welfare state policies expanded in the 1960s, rates of imprisonment of blacks were also lower then, and most black children were raised in two-parent families. At one time, a higher percentage of blacks than whites were married and working." > > The data is out there. > > Blacks were hampered by the actions of Good Whitey, yet an ideological drive to control has led Good Whitey to ignore what actually worked for Black folks in the past, the market economy, and instead push a suite of programs that has hurt Black folks. I have no idea what point this is supposed to make. The 20 years prior to the 1960s is when social security and other New Deal policies took effect. Imprisonment was lower because the war on drugs didn’t start until the 1970s and “tough on crime” measures didn’t get into full swing until the 80s. Lower unemployment isn’t better if disparities in education, wages, and working conditions are worse. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2017, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/639 "2017-10-01T12:55:46Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That’s a great point. Really, he should go some place like Paris to appreciate why America is great. Or maybe Vermont, if you’re not into the whole big city thing. Like, he could even write about it. Lengthily. Well maybe. I was suggesting he maybe come to the Midwest and some small towns across mid America to actually meet and talk to people. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/640 "2017-10-01T17:23:43Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Well maybe. I was suggesting he maybe come to the Midwest and some small towns across mid America to actually meet and talk to people. Coastal elites! If I can get a “what about black on black crime” from you I will have completed my Fox News bingo card. -Richard Parker, mid America native [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=33)