Trump, a racist or not?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

November 01, 2015

This is not to defend Donald Trump, the aspirant Republican presidential candidate, but it is to question how we, as Africans, think about political issues.

A statement said to have been made by Trump found itself on my Facebook wall.  The import of the statement was that Trump was insulting Africans.

The piece, written by Christine Mendoza for a web magazine called Politica, not to be confused with the Politico web magazine published in the US, has since provoked intense outrage on the web among Africans. 

It said,  "Once again, US business magnate Donald Trump has expressed his deep disgust for Africans by referring to them as lazy fools only good at eating, lovemaking, and thuggery. Speaking in Indianapolis, Trump who is also the republican Presidential torch bearer reiterated his promise to deport Africans especially those of Kenyan origin including their son Barrack Obama."

To start with, Trump is not the "torch bearer" yet because the primaries are not yet over.  Thus, a  presidential candidate has not been chosen for the Republican party.  

And another lie by Ms. Mendoza is that, constitutionally, no one can deport Obama.

The above two statements are just technical points but are worth making to clear the confusion.  From a journalistic point of view, Ms. Mendoza’s entire article, from beginning to end, is a shoddy piece of reportage intended as a hit piece; but not even a clever one at that. 

The article, as made up, has no attribution, lacks a specific date, event, and time when this statement was made by Trump. Could this illogical piece was written for the Politica readers, hoping they will be dumb enough to believe it?

The biggest problem in all this is the article’s unspoken assumptions. 

That Trump is dumb enough to insult all Blacks, after having insulted all women (whites included), Hispanics, and Muslims. Who else is left to give him the majority vote he needs to win the primaries or the general election?

I am not overlooking the fact that during a US presidential election season, all things heinous and dumb do show up in the media about candidates, especially those on the conservatives or Republican side. 

But this purported statement by Trump, cited by Politica (possible of East African origin), a magazine few have heard of until the publication of the slanderous article, has yet to show up in any American media as news.

And here comes the gist of the problem.  Unfortunately, the "truth" for a sizeable segment of our community, of which the Politica readership is part, is that all Republicans or conservatives are homophobes and racists.

They dislike the aged, all minorities (Africans especially), love war, starve babies, and are opposed to women; and do deny all within this group their civil and birthrights.

The visceral reaction to this kind of spiel is what drives many of us to the polling booth, with hatred for Republicans or conservatives. 

Now back to the main story about Trump.

Whoever wrote this story or sent it to my wall must have first hoped that I was a simpleton to have sent it.

But, let's assume the news about Trump might be true and take the time to give it a prism test for reasonableness.

Democrats and liberal candidates in The US, who are decidedly not on the side of Republicans, haven't made this report by Politica part of their campaign's talking points; unless we can agree that their silence is a confirmation or approval of the sentiment attributed falsely to Trump.

The DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is silent on this issue even though she has proven to be a highly vocal basher of Republicans.  Imagine what damage her silence does to a propaganda bonanza for Democrats in the 2016 race.

Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, a Democrat, and a shy-less opponent of Republicans, who many times has used constitutional protection of the Senate floor to launch slanderous materials against conservatives and Republicans hasn't said a word condemning Trump on this issue.

A few samples of Reid deeds on the senate floor can demonstrate how unscrupulous he is when performing against Republicans:

" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took to the floor on Tuesday to denounce the spending -- now up to $14.5 million -- by Charles and David Koch on Senate races, the latest attempt by Democrats to raise the profile of the free-spending conservative brothers in advance of the November election." Washington Post

From Breitbart Publication, " During the 2012 election cycle Romney released tax returns for 2010 and 2011. Democrats hoping to embarrass Romney and to emphasize his wealth demanded he release additional returns. It was in the midst of this constant media drumbeat that Sen. Reid claimed a former investor in Romney’s company, Bain Capital, had told him Romney paid no taxes for 10 years.”

In Reid's words, " "[Romney has] refused to release his tax returns, as we know. If a person coming before this body wanted to be a cabinet officer, he couldn't be if he did the same refusal Mitt Romney does about tax returns.... So the word's out that he hasn't paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes because he hasn't "

Then Romney released his taxes to cover all years in question and, indeed, they showed he had paid his taxes.

After the 2012 election, the Free Beacon said Reid refused to apologize to Romney:  "Harry Reid Justifies Lying About Romney’s Taxes from Senate Floor: ‘He Didn’t Win, Did He?’

Reid didn't stop with Romney.  And would have picked up the cudgel against Trump for his supposed racist rant before Politica would have needed to publish it.

Please note that the absence of comment on Reid's part (or on all the Democrats) is not an act of sympathy for Trump.  For, there is no love lost between the two; especially when Trump is riding so high in the polls now.

Reid's feelings about Republicans are explicit and highly pronounced:

" In 2012, as the Senate debated a bill that would extend the payroll tax and do away with an EPA pollution regulation regarding drinking water, Reid accused Republican lawmakers of trying to poison American citizens...Republicans would extend the tax cut, but only if Democrats "will let us (Republicans) continue to put things like arsenic and mercury in the water of the American people," Reid said from the floor of the senate."

But since all this started with Trump being accused as racist, let’s take a glimpse at Reid's attitude on the race issue.

" But the depth of Reid's own love for people of color came into question in 2010, when he had to apologize after Bloomberg News' Mark Halperin and John Heilemann wrote in "Game Change" that the senator was "wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a Black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama – a 'light-skinned' African-American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." (Washington Examniner}

Of course, this racist remark went astonishingly unnoticed within the African Diaspora community.  The funny part was it had been documented.  The only problem was it was not spoken by a conservative or a Republican like Trump.

Though Reid's effusing is well documented,  Politica would never print such infamy about a man like him, a liberal.  But the remarks purported to be Trump’s, a conservative, although patently false, was good enough to print.

Some of us have no qualm about who others vote for.  But this automatic reaction to classify Republicans as racist has to stop. We must go past the seeing of all things advanced by Republicans as hurtful to our race.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, November 01, 2015.

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