Only one African-American surveyed in the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal indicated an inclination to support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. This is probably due to the rhetoric Mr. Trump is using and the way he has decided to run his campaign. I don’t know Donald Trump personally, but I’m convinced he doesn’t really care about black or brown people or earning our votes.
Donald Trump launched his campaign more than a year ago. Since that time, he hasn’t done one interview with an outlet that caters to African-American, Latino or Hispanic voters – not Univision, Telemundo, NBC BLK, NBC Latino, BET News, BET Digital, TV One, Ebony, Essence or El Pais. You’d think he would have at least talked to Amsterdam News, as it’s the oldest African-American newspaper in the country and is headquartered in New York, not far from where he spends most of his time. Donald J. Trump has not even bothered to do a Latino-, Hispanic- or African-American-leaning radio show.
Additionally, Trump hasn’t set foot in an African-American church since announcing his candidacy. This includes the black church in North Carolina that endorsed him. Instead, he merely sent his daughter-in-law to the endorsement event. He has repeatedly turned down invitations to speak at conferences for the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and even the National Urban League. Yet Bob Dole, both Bushes, Mitt Romney, John McCain and even Ronald Reagan deemed it worthy to address the National Urban League during their presidential bids. As one of the business-leaning civil rights organizations which states part of its mission is to “enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance,” one would think this would be right up the businessman and Republican Party presidential nominee’s alley. But apparently, it’s not. Donald Trump and his staff have also ignored invitations from HBCUs and have dismissed efforts from supporters to organize African-Americans for Trump in places like Florida, which is a crucial battleground state.
Basically, Donald Trump is refusing to talk to black and brown voters in the media and in our own communities.
Meanwhile, what Donald Trump has done is reminisce about the “good old days” when law enforcement wasn’t so “politically correct” with protestors while accusing one of our nation’s most distinguished jurists of being unable to do his job because of his Mexican heritage. He also threw Hispanic media icon Jorge Ramos out of a press conference and endorsed the controversial “Operation Wetback” during a Republican presidential primary debate. Mr. Trump has also extended invitations to a handful of African-American, Latino and Hispanic individuals, including RNC interns (the campaign called them activists) to Trump Tower for nothing more than photo opportunities devoid of any real policy discussions. He even went to Louisiana this week and managed to avoid visiting any African-American or Latino neighborhoods.
Donald Trump seems to be unaware that racism does not exist in a vacuum, rather it is supported through institutions and people like him.
Whether it’s refusing to rent to African-American families in New York, his barrage of racist statements, his encouragement of the beating of a Black Lives Matter protestor at his rally or hiring Steve Bannon as his new campaign chairman, Donald Trump has a well-documented history of being a part of the problem. His latest attempts to “reach out” to Latinos and African-Americans are nothing more than stunts drummed up by his campaign team to appeal to white voters whom are actively jumping ship. Donald Trump isn’t really interested in humane immigration policies or better schools in predominantly African-American communities. Not at all. He is interested in signaling to the base of GOP general election voters that he really is not the racist, divisive, bigoted candidate he looks like on television.
Donald Trump does not care about our communities and the people around him do not have a great track record of caring about them either, e.g. Steve Bannon and the section of Breitbart.com tagged “black crime.” Donald Trump and his campaign don’t really want our votes. They just want the illusion that he’s trying. They want people like me to stop calling him disingenuous and racist on television and they want us to forget he has not proposed any concrete policy proposals that would benefit black and brown communities. Trump probably wishes he didn’t have to put on the façade of “outreach” or read from a teleprompter so he does not offend someone.
Donald Trump really just wants to be himself. As one of the greatest literary geniuses of our time, Maya Angelou reminded us: When someone shows you who they are, believe them…THE FIRST TIME.
