# Trump Perry sign racist **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 22, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577 "2017-10-22T19:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/21 "2017-10-23T18:18:17Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Because the sign wouldn’t have “worked” if it was one all-white school taunting another all-white school. They would have used “defeat” or “destroy”, but they went with “Trump” possibly because of how he’s treating minorities. Otherwise, what’s the message? “Lose to Perry in the popular vote!” “Lie to Perry with every word that comes out of our mouth!” “Hire and fire senior members of Perry’s administration in a generally chaotic way!” > > Of course, trump the word, not the name, has other meanings, but they said they meant to reference the president. > > I’m not saying that it’s definitely racist, but definitely insensitive and tone-deaf. I guess. I don’t think it “worked” anyway, regardless of the racial make-up of the rival school. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/22 "2017-10-23T19:00:51Z")
Given that the theme of the week was “patriotism”, I think it would be difficult to come up with any kind of slogan that couldn’t be seen as racist if you squinted hard enough. Taken out of context, a simple “Beat Perry!” sign could (and probably would) be viewed as racist. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/23 "2017-10-23T19:22:37Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Given that the theme of the week was “patriotism”, I think it would be difficult to come up with any kind of slogan that couldn’t be seen as racist if you squinted hard enough. Taken out of context, a simple “Beat Perry!” sign could (and probably would) be viewed as racist. I have no goddamned idea what any of this means. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/24 "2017-10-23T19:51:06Z")
I don’t think it’s racist. It’s just stupid. At least it didn’t say “Lynch Perry!” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/25 "2017-10-23T21:50:31Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Because the sign wouldn’t have “worked” if it was one all-white school taunting another all-white school. They would have used “defeat” or “destroy”, but they went with “Trump” possibly because of how he’s treating minorities. Otherwise, what’s the message? “Lose to Perry in the popular vote!” “Lie to Perry with every word that comes out of our mouth!” “Hire and fire senior members of Perry’s administration in a generally chaotic way!” > > Of course, trump the word, not the name, has other meanings, but they said they meant to reference the president. > > I’m not saying that it’s definitely racist, but definitely insensitive and tone-deaf. Why wouldn’t it have “worked”. Trump “trumped” the dozen or so rivals he had in the GOP primary and then “trumped” Hillary. Minorities are not some political rival that Trump is trying to beat. The analogy works even better if the rivals are set up on a poster like a political ad. N.B.: This is not something I would do myself, but I think some folks are trying too hard to read stuff into this when there are perfectly good non-racist explanations available. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/26 "2017-10-23T23:13:56Z")
If I had to put my finger on what makes the double entendre touchy, it’s the implicit assumption that Trump is against Perry (the predominately black team) and _for_ the predominately white one. It doesn’t really work as a pun without that assumption giving it this added dimension. Because otherwise, it would be rather random to invoke the President’s name in a middle of a HS football game, right? When you throw the flag the mix, then the sign really looks like crypto white nationalism. I could see kids making this sign innocently, but I think that is not as likely as we might want to think. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2017, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/27 "2017-10-24T00:18:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Why wouldn’t it have “worked”. Trump “trumped” the dozen or so rivals he had in the GOP primary and then “trumped” Hillary. Minorities are not some political rival that Trump is trying to beat. > > The analogy works even better if the rivals are set up on a poster like a political ad. > > N.B.: This is not something I would do myself, but I think some folks are trying too hard to read stuff into this when there are perfectly good non-racist explanations available. Just to be clear, this isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on. I’m just trying to explore it a little. I just can’t really imagine them using that particular phrase if they were up against a predominantly white school. Do you think it would be an issue if the target school was nearly all Muslims or Hispanic? Can you see any racist angle at all with this? I think it was in poor taste. Heck, everything involving Trump is in poor taste. If you look up “poor taste” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Trump (right next to the blank spot where gullible used to be). Anyway, they’re just stupid kids, like all kids, and they don’t really get politics, etc. Maybe it was totally harmless fun, but since the Perry kids were insulted, I’m glad the non-Perry kids apologized. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577/28 "2017-10-25T17:16:39Z")
Whenever you have two teams playing a sports game of some sort, you’re always going to have fans flying banners saying to beat the other team, or asserting superiority over the other team or their fans, or the like. That’s just part of the nature of sports. It logically follows, then, that whenever you have a mostly-white school playing against a mostly-black school, you’re going to have a group of mostly white kids saying to beat, or asserting their superiority over, a group of mostly black kids. That doesn’t make it racist. Nor, I think, does the inclusion of Trump’s name in anything inherently render it racist, since, while Trump himself is in fact racist, it’s not the primary element of his identity (his Wikipedia page, for instance, is going to start off something like “Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-perry-sign-racist/799577.md?page=1)