On Tuesday, President Donald Trump – seemingly concerned about the situation in Chicago – tweeted:

If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017

This statement, again, shows claim to his inability to communicate with black people or about issues which affect them.

Solving “the situation” in Chicago is more complicated than a simple matter of sending more federal officers. And like most major cities, Chicago has FBI, DEA, and ATF field offices anyway. What else could you bring in?

If Trump’s sympathy for the African-American plight was so genuine, he’d understand that more troops would be the exact things NOT to do. There is no trust between law authority and minorities in the city, and for good cause.

A couple of months ago the Department of Justice published the results of an investigation into Chicago’s police department (sparked by public outrage following the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by a police officer, Jason Van Dyke). The report concluded “…CPD officers engage in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, that is unreasonable.”

The Justice Department addressed combatting the climb in gun violence this way:

“Over the year-plus since the release of that video, and while we have been conducting this investigation, Chicago experienced a surge in shootings and homicides. The reasons for this spike are broadly debated and inarguably complex.”

But, President Trump can’t understand that — the complexity of the issue. He doesn't understand because he doesn't care.

I mean, President Trump can’t understand the complexities of issues that predominantly affect Black people because he does not understand the complexities of Black people.

He erroneously believes that the Black experience is uniform.

How can we be sure of this?

Back when Trump was just a nominee to represent the GOP, at a rally in Dimondale, Michigan, he infamously said:

“Look how much African-American communities have suffered under democratic control. To those, I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new? Like, Trump.

I say it again, look: What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose?! You’re living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?

And at the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote, I promise you. Because I will produce for the inner cities, and I will produce for the African-Americans.”

Here, again we see Trump making promises with no plan; further proving that he has no idea what he’s talking about, or who he’s talking to.

He links blackness to living in poverty, attending poor schools, not having and not having a job. It's comments like those which indicates that though he’s indeed been face to face with black people, he’s never looked at, or seen them.

And I don’t think I’m the only one who has caught on.

Following the second United States presidential debate in October of last year, Dr. Lynne Murphy – Ph.D. in Linguistics – analyzed Trump’s use of “the” before referring to African-Americans.

“‘The’ makes the group seem to like it’s a large uniform mass, rather than a diverse group of individuals,” she writes in Quartz. “This is the key to ‘othering:’ treating people from another group as less human than one’s own group. The Nazis did it when they talked about dying Juden (‘the Jews’). Homophobes do it when they talk about ‘the gays.’”

It’s bad that he has no idea how to communicate with at least 12 percent of the country. But, what’s worse is that he has no serious interest in learning how. Look at the few black individuals of stature he has chosen to meet: a cast of comedians, musicians, kooky televangelists, and athletes.

It’s troubling to have to question if President Trump only sees black people as celebrities, and entertainers, but that is our reality.

The problem with how President Trump talks to black people is that he does not know how to even begin addressing the problems challenging black people in America, or much worse – he just doesn’t care.

Reece T. Williams

Writing since November 2016 · 1 story contributed