Trump Begins Black History Month By Mentioning His Black Friends and Talking About the “Inner City”

Never mind the fact that whenever Trump speaks, he sounds like a child playing dress-up and pretending to be President, earlier this morning he hosted a “listening session” to kick off Black History Month, and proceeded to give the most tone-deaf, self-serving, and muddled statement he could’ve possibly given on such an occasion.

For those of you who, like me, can’t take more than a few seconds of listening to him speak, here is the full transcript of his remarks via The Nerdy Bird:

Let’s ignore, for now, the fact that his disjointed speeches always sound like he cut words out of a magazine, shook them up, and pasted them down wherever they fell. Beyond that, there are several troubling things about his remarks, particularly as a kick-off to a month celebrating black Americans and their contributions to this country:

• He doesn’t seem to know who the black Americans in history are or what exactly they did. “Frederick Douglass is an example of someone who’s done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more, I notice.” WHAT?! What is he even saying? Has he only just today heard of Frederick Douglass? What exactly does he think Douglass did an “amazing job” doing? Does he know Douglass is long dead? He rattles off names like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman, but talks about them as if they’re “Employees of the Month” at one of his companies.
• He talks about his black friends. You know, people like Ben Carson, and Omorosa, and…well, it’s just the two, but you know, he really likes them. He also really likes black people. After all, when Ben Carson took him around to “a lot of places that I wasn’t so familiar with” during the campaign, he realized that “They’re incredible people.” I’m sure the black community thanks him for that ringing endorsement.
• He thought it pertinent to bring up “the inner city.” Actually, the exact quote is, “We’re going to work very hard on the inner city.” Um, why is he telling this room full of black people that? Does he think that’s where they all live? But apparently Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon who has absolutely zero experience with housing or urban development or anything else, really, except medicine and existing as a black person, is “going to be doing that, bigly, that’s one of his big things that we’re going to be looking at.” *sigh*
• He made a majority of the speech about himself, “fake news” and how much he hates the press. From his rehashing of the “fake” story about how the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. may or may not have been removed (and may or may not have been put back) from his office, to taking the time to call CNN “fake news” (except for the one reporter from there he deems worthy) but saying that Fox News has “treated me very nice,” most of Trump’s remarks were actually about himself, talking about support he’s received, and taking on the #haters. Is that how “listening sessions” usually work? You set the tone by making it all about you?
• He spent zero time on talking about how he was going to solve problems the black community has actually mentioned they would like some help with, thankyouverymuch. He made zero mention of the police brutality they face, or the systemic racism of the prison industrial complex, but he did talk about how “We need safer communities, and we’re going to do that with law enforcement. (Trigger warning for violence: Would that be the same law enforcement that did this, this, and this to unarmed and/or legally carrying black men – yet treats an armed white man waving his gun around and pointing it at cops like this?)

But please, tell us more about how Ben Carson is such a good pal.

Honestly, a speech like this at a “listening session” for Black History Month from Donald Trump doesn’t surprise me. It merely highlights what a majority of the country already knew about Trump when they didn’t vote for him, and far too many people who did either agreed with, or chose not to see. Unchecked racism, hiding in plain sight.

(image via screencap)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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