Why Is Trump Accussed Of Being Racist?

Politics & Elections
41

It’s hard to take the OP seriously, but I’ll do it anyway as an exercise.

As noted in the cite over here Trump was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent to black people at various Trump-owned developments in the New York City area. When he settled the penalties and promised to abide by civil rights laws, he continued refusing to rent to black people, and was sued by the Justice Department a second time. So maybe he’s a racist bigot. But that’s not what matters, anyway. What matters is that his stated policies are racist, and many of his devout followers attracted to those policies are racist. Let’s have a look …

Well, no, illegal immigration is already illegal, by definition, so there’s nothing to really “take a stand on”. The most worrisome thing Trump wants to do is not so much the stupid wall as the promise to round up and deport the Mexicans and other Hispanics already here, which number an estimated 12 million and possibly much more, some with American-born children and families who are not, in fact, illegal.

He wants to do this because he says they’re responsible for many of the country’s problems. In that sense Trump has “taken a stand” on the Mexican problem in much the same way that Hitler took a stand on “the Jewish problem”, for similar reasons, with similar rhetoric, and with similar solutions. One might wonder how Trump is going to accomplish this without massive civil rights violations and packing them all into thousands of railroad freight cars, but I’m sure he can look to the techniques of Der Fuhrer for guidance.

And let’s remember here the basic premise of demagoguery. The issue isn’t whether Trump really believes he can or will do these things, it’s that he fires up his base by saying he will, and his base goes wild.

Well here, too, we can look to history for guidance. After all, the KKK terrorized black people mainly to get them out of their neighborhoods, schools, stores, and public institutions. So just like keeping out Muslims, one might say that there’s nothing to indicate that it’s motivated by racism. One might say that the KKK’s goal would be to reduce the risk of black people doing all those bad things that they believe black people do. I’m pretty sure the KKK had quite a long list of those bad things, and I’m pretty sure that one of those bad things that black people do that angered them so much was “existing”. Which is something that Muslims, as viewed by Trump and his supporters, have in common with black people as viewed by the KKK. So clearly, nothing racist here at all. In fact the KKK is so awesomely non-racist that their leader publicly came out in support of Trump, and urged all the Klan members to vote for him.

Actually just about anything that comes out of his mouth.

42

The question raised in the OP is Why Is Trump Accussed (sic) Of Being Racist? Many of those discussing the topic have decided that “bigot” might be a better word to describe the racism, xenophobia & sexism in so many of his statements.

Maybe he doesn’t believe all of that stuff; he’s just pandering for votes. But saying that shit* will* get him accused of being racist. Who the fuck knows what he actually believes?

Some of us *are *interested in complex matters.

43

Yeah, in much the same way that a “no blacks allowed” sign outside a store isn’t racist if the goal is to reduce the risk of shoplifting.

44

In my opinion, this is a weak argument. Using the same argument, you could argue that segregation wasn’t racist - it was just the enforcement of segregation laws. If a law is enacted for racist reasons, then the law is a form of racism.

45

What would you personally consider evidence to support the conclusion that somebody is racist?

46

Whatever he believes, wouldn’t he feel a certain obligation to govern the same way he campaigned? Or am I attributing too much honesty to him?

47

I agree completely about segregation laws, but I think you’re misunderstanding my point here. No one is raising the argument that the illegality of sneaking across the Mexican border to live and work in the US without a proper visa is a bad thing. Most would agree that the general thrust of such immigration laws is reasonable and all countries have them. So a politician saying “I oppose illegal immigration” isn’t staking out any radically new position, he’s just agreeing with a law that pretty much everyone agrees with and is, in fact, being enforced via border patrols etc. to all reasonably feasible degrees. So Trump isn’t taking any more of a “stand” here than anyone else.

What’s new with Trump is first of all the wall, which is just stupid more than anything else, especially with reports I’ve read of more Mexicans leaving than actually arriving. But the real story here is that Trump wants to round them up – all 12 million or so – and somehow deport them all, en masse. And he’s already explained the reasoning – they’re bad for the country in terms of both economy and crime; as an ethnoracial group of brown people they are all criminals, murders, rapists, drug dealers, etc. The potential for human rights violations, bigotry, mistreatment, and no end of other abuses in such a crazy plan is just staggering. The analogy with Nazi pogroms and mass deportations of people they wanted to get rid of is really quite apt. Seeing Trump quoting Mussolini is just a surreal final touch.

48

I think the difference is that he is being a demagogue. People who respond to vaguely racist talk are part of his audience. They vote for him, he becomes president, and maybe it turns out he isn’t a racist at all.

A recent NYT column claimed “xenophobe” was a better descriptor than “racist.”

But since the word “racist” has inherent inaccuracies, call him a stereotyper or a profiler? “The concepts he expresses often consist of stereotyped profiles of this or that demographic group as a bloc.”

49

At best, Trump is one massive, walking ego who believes only what he believes, won’t look at any other points of view than his own, and will either find data and twist it toward his conclusions or simply make it up.

His so-called ‘proof’ of criminals among Hispanic immigrants is actually disproven by the very study he cites; its conclusion is that, in general, that population is less likely to partake in criminal behavior than other demographic groups, specifically including young white males.

I also found funny his attempt at appearing reasonable with that quote by ending it with “And some, I assume, are good people.” As if that makes it all better.

Or shall we talk about the so-called black murder data he quoted (and tweeted) that simply doesn’t exist?

Trump has no filter. He’ll just say whatever happens to come into his head, and then he has to go back and figure out some way to support it so that he doesn’t lose face, true or not (and usually it appears to be not).

I still can’t believe that there are enough gullible people in the country to buy into his particular line of crap, dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs or otherwise. Trump in office would be an utter catastrophe. Thank whatever gods or prime mover there be that it’s not going to happen.

50

I’m becoming reasonably adept at understanding Trumpspeak. There’s a clear but unstated “I don’t know” at the end of that caveat. Basically the gist of his declaration is that we know – it’s a given – that huge numbers of these Mexicans are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and other criminals. Now having established this, it’s possible that some of them might actually be good people – or maybe not, I don’t know.

He did the same thing during his birtherism phase. “Was Obama born in the USA? I don’t know”.

He did it with Ben Carson. Carson turned out to be a Seventh Day Adventist. I don’t remember Trump’s exact words but it was basically asking, is Carson a nutcase member of some really strange bizarre religious cult? I don’t know.

To his delusional followers, Trump’s “I don’t know”, whether explicit or implied, has become a dog whistle that basically means “you betcha!” to whatever slimy innuendo he’s pretending he’s too refined to actually say out loud. :smiley:

51

Good question but it does seem to me that the ‘race card’ sure gets used a lot these days and so many times I see no justification for it.

52

ISTM that the phrase “race card” sure gets used a lot these days and so many times I see no justification for it.

53

And of course, he thinks that some Mexicans are decent people even though he believes that they’re all rapists. In other words, he thinks that some rapists are decent.

It’s also not just about the laws we have on the books about immigration. He believes (or at least claims) these things about all Mexicans, those who are here legally, those who are here illegally, and those who stayed in Mexico. Meanwhile, he doesn’t have any objections to (say) Scots who overstay their visas.

54

Here are some reasons why he being accused of being racist …

55

Ok, I checked out that link and I think they are really stretching it. Ex. they accuse him of being racist because he questions Obama’s birth certificate?

They accuse him of being racist because some racists like him. I dont see it. People have a right to vote for whom they want. I’m sure Hillary doesnt agree with all her supporters either. Heck both Obama and her were friends with communists.

The only thing close is they say he didnt rent to black people and even that might be a stretch.

56

Don’t worry about it. This just means they see through the “plausible deniability” bullshit which is at the heart of the Southern Strategy.

In this case, it’s quite simple: Why is Obama the first President for whom there is a substantial Birther movement? Why weren’t there umpty-dozen lawsuits about John McCain, who was, after all, born in a strange technicality? Could it be because Obama has darker skin than McCain? That certainly is the most reasonable explanation, in that it’s the only explanation which is in any way convincing to people who aren’t attempting to cozy up to racists without explicitly getting any of the racism on them.

It’s like how certain politicians were massively up in arms about the states’ rights issue of forced busing back in the Civil Rights Era. The fact that was one of the few states’ rights issues which got them so exercised wasn’t supposed to be noticeable, perhaps, but the basic premise was clear to anyone who wasn’t actively trying to profit from it.

57

Considering that it was proven in a court of law that Trump discriminates against black people, I don’t see how it can be considered a stretch. Especially when it was proven a second time. Maybe you could argue the first time that Trump was somehow unaware that discriminating against black people is racism but he certainly knew it the second time.

58

Zero of those “reasons” are actual examples of anything racist, as well as the other link someone provided upthread (except for one alleged thirdhand statement that wasn’t said publicly*). One of them is even that he said “I am the least racist person there is”, and another is that he said “I don’t have a racist bone in my body" and that is somehow being cited as evidence that he is racist. :confused:

Honestly, the term “racist” gets tossed about so casually these days (as well as “misogynist”) that it’s completely meaningless. There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Trump, but saying he’s “racist” really isn’t one of them.
*If he really said the thing about “Laziness is a trait in blacks”, I would agree of course about that being a racist statement. That seems to be a quote from one of his employees he says he met “two or three times” who then wrote a book about him and had a financial incentive to aggrandize. Since it wasn’t said publicly, obviously it can’t be verified that he said it.

59

I think you might be misunderstanding what happened in court.

What makes you say that Trump’s discrimination was proven in court?

60

Absolutely. What other reason could one have for questioning his birth certificate? There is absolutely no evidence he was born anywhere but Hawaii, and tons of evidence that he was born in Hawaii.

I’ll call bullshit on the “friends with communists”, though it’s not relevant to the discussion. It’s not just that some racists like him, it’s that he was extremely slow to disavow them, and feigned ignorance about David Duke and the KKK, which is entirely unbelievable considering that he directly criticized Duke in the context of politics about 15 years before.

I don’t know if all of this means Trump is racist, but it does indicate to me that he doesn’t really have a problem appealing to racists, and that he’s not particularly concerned about avoiding the appearance of racism. As far as political candidates, that’s almost the same thing – it didn’t matter much if George Wallace says he really didn’t mean the segregation stuff – saying it while disbelieving it is as bad as saying it while believing it.