President Donald Trump in a meeting at the White House on January 9, 2018.
Ever since Mr. Donald Trump P’00’s began his campaign for President of the United States, his supporters have denied his blatant racism. Over and over again, he has proved those supporters wrong by using derogatory remarks to describe certain races and identity groups. The latest example of this occurred on January 11, when Mr. Trump reportedly referred to Haiti and some African nations as “sh*thole countries.” This comment further exemplifies Mr. Trump’s white superiority complex, making it more and more impossible to pretend that he is not extremely racist.
One of the most disappointing but unsurprising aspects of these comments is that Mr. Trump made them during a meeting to determine the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA is an Obama-era program that protects individuals who came illegally to the United States as children from being deported. The people protected by this program have been raised in the U.S. — they are inherently American and wish to stay in the country where they grew up. Despite this, Mr. Trump refuses to keep the program in place. So, instead of simply negotiating with bipartisan legislators to protect DACA and accept the offered increased border security in exchange, he questioned why Americans would want people from Haiti and African countries in the U.S. He would propose that we deliberately exclude children from countries such as those from the program, instead encouraging more people from places like Norway to move here. In other words, he wants to keep people from majority-black countries out of the U.S., while citizens of Norway, a nation that is 83% white, are more than welcome to emigrate here.
How can these remarks be called anything but racist? According to his ex-wife Ivana, Mr. Trump is not racist, but only merely confused. However, confusion is not an excuse for calling other nations what he did. Those vulgar remarks are blatantly rooted in Mr. Trump’s supremacist belief that white people are more civilized and educated than black people. Furthermore, given the overwhelming pre-existing evidence of Mr. Trump’s racism, there is no logical or moral way to say that Mr. Trump isn’t racist. For example, throughout his campaign, Mr. Trump labeled Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, essentially generalizing a country with a population of 127.5 million people as criminals. This is the definition of racial prejudice.
Moreover, Mr. Trump criticized both sides of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, essentially disapproving of activists protesting the discrimination against black people. In fact, his target of Haiti and African nations is not unprecedented. Last year, he criticized allowing Haitians into the U.S., claiming they “all have AIDS.” He also complained about Nigerian immigrants, stating that they would never “go back to their huts” after seeing America. The evidence is indisputable: Mr. Trump is a racist.
As CNN’s Anderson Cooper put it, Mr. Trump’s comments are “not racial. Not racially charged. Racist. Let’s not kid ourselves. Let’s not dance around it. The sentiment the president expressed today is a racist sentiment.”
There’s simply no point in pretending that these comments are anything but racist — that is pure ignorance. To deny the racist nature of these remarks is to accept and endorse racism in the Oval Office. It supports the discrimination against people from Haiti and African countries simply because of the color of their skin and where they were born. It disregards the significant work that people from those countries have done for the United States and beyond.
Presidents are supposed to properly represent their country, acting as role models for youth. When racists like Mr. Trump are granted that level of power, it normalizes white supremacy. This will ultimately breed more racism within our country if all legislators do not officially condemn Trump’s behavior. After all, racism should not be a partisan issue.. Trump’s behavior needs to be openly condemned by all.
