opinion
who will Counter Donald Trump’s Remarks?
There is one area in which
Donald Trump is no celebrity
apprentice – racism.
After being exposed as a public-
ity-loving idiot after he questioned
the authenticity of President
Obama’s birth records, Trump
quickly shifted away from the dis-
credited birther attack and began
raising wild and unsubstantiated
charges about Obama’s academic
achievement, a record that
includes the future president fin-
ishing in the top 10 percent of his
class at Harvard Law School and
being elected president of the
prestigious Harvard Law Review.
Although journalistic lapdogs
are willing to parrot Trump’s
ridiculous and increasingly out-
landish charges about President
Obama, few have chronicled his
racist behavior and comments.
Trump may have escaped scruti-
ny partly because he donated free
office space to Jesse Jackson once
upon a time and frequently makes
the rounds with Snoop Dogg and
P. Diddy. In one of the few times
he has been confronted about his
racism, Trump told TMZ.com, “I
am the last person that such a
thing should be said about.”
No, Donald, you should be one
of the first. And, I will tell you
why.
One would never know that
Trump ever hung out with
African-Americans, judging by
his language.
In a radio interview with Fred
Dicker on Talk 1300 in New York,
Trump complained about the diffi-
culty Hillary Clinton had winning
over Black voters.
t HE c uRRY
R EPORt
George E.
Curry
“You’ll hear a political reporter
go on and say it had nothing to do
with race. But how come she had
such a tiny piece of the vote? And
you know, it’s a very sad thing,”
Trump said. “I have a great rela-
tionship with the Blacks. I’ve
always had a great relationship
with the Blacks. But unfortunate-
ly, it seems that, you know, the
numbers you cite are very, very
frightening numbers.”
The Blacks? Who uses that kind
of language? And Trump didn’t
just say it once – he said it twice.
Well, let’s see how Trump treat-
ed the Blacks that he claims to
have such a great relationship
with.
In 1973, the United States
Justice Department sued Trump
Management Corp. for violating
the Fair Housing Act by refusing
to rent to some potential tenants
because of their “race or color.”
Trump, who had taken over as
president of the family business by
then, reacted in typical Donald
Trump fashion – he sued the gov-
ernment for $100 million, claim-
ing the family business had been
defamed. The judge dismissed the
suit, saying Trump and his lawyer,
Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to
Senator Joseph McCarthy, were
“wasting time and paper.”
Trump signed a settlement
requiring that vacancies in the
15,000 apartment complex, which
was approximately 95 percent
White, must first be offered to
people of color. He agreed not to
engage in further racial discrimi-
nation. In a precursor of what
was to come after Obama released
his long-form birth certificate,
Trump described his defeat as a
victory and bragged that he was
not required to “accept persons on
welfare as tenants unless they
John R. O’Donnell, former pres-
ident of Trump Plaza Hotel &
Casino, cited racist and anti-
Semitic remarks made by his for-
mer boss. In his book, Trumped,
the former company official said
Trump disparaged a Black
accountant at Trump Plaza by
asserting “laziness is a trait in
blacks.” According to O’Don -
nell’s book, Trump also said,
“Black guys counting my money!
I hate it. The only kind of people I
want counting my money are short
guys that wear yarmulkes every
day.”
‘I have a great relationship with the
Blacks. I’ve always had a great
relationship with the Blacks’
— Donald Trump
qualified as any other tenant.”
Three years later, the Justice
Department hauled Trump back
into court for violating the settle-
ment by telling the Blacks they
had no vacancies when, in fact,
there were openings.
After a group of four African-
Americans and one Latino, aged
14 to 16 years old, were arrested in
1989 for allegedly raping a White
female jogger in Central Park,
Trump took out a full-page ad in
the New York Times calling for
the death penalty. That would
have been a terrible mistake – all
five teenagers were later exonerat-
ed.
In an interview with Playboy
magazine in 1999, Trump tried to
dismiss O’Donnell as a loser, but
acknowledged,
“The
stuff
O’Donnell wrote about me is
probably true.”
Evidently not content stereotyp-
ing of Blacks and Jews who
worked for him, Trump was
inclined to reduce the president to
being a Black athlete.
“If you look at what he’s doing
in Libya, which is a total disaster,
nobody even knows what’s going
on in Libya,” Trump asserted. “If
you look at what’s happening with
gasoline prices where he said he
has no control over prices, which
he does. If he gets on the phone or
gets off his basketball court or
whatever he is doing at the time.”
It turns out that while Trump
was attacking Obama on Libya,
for playing basketball, and raising
false charges about Obama’s birth
certificate, the president was thor-
oughly engaged in planning a top-
secret operation that would lead to
the killing of Osama bin Laden. It
was Trump who didn’t know what
was going on.
In view of Trump’s record, it is
difficult to believe him when he
says if he could do it all over, he
would come back as an African-
American.
He told Bryant Gumble as part
of a two-hour television special on
race: “If I was starting off today, I
would love to be a well-educated
Black because I really do believe
they have the actual advantage
today.”
Not as much of the advantage
enjoyed by a run-of-the-mill
White male who inherited his
wealth from his father. By the
way, Donald, there is a well-edu-
cated African-American in the
White House. And, look how you
and those of your ilk are treating
him.
george e. Curry, former editor-
in-chief of emerge magazine and
the nnPa news Service, is a
keynote speaker, moderator, and
media coach. he can be reached
through his web site, www.george-
curry.com You can also follow him
atwww.twitter.com/currygeorge.
Self-Inflicted Damage
S
idjuts.
ince the announced
The
interesting
killing of Emanuel S tatElESS S OcIEtY c ENtER
thing, though, is that
Goldstein -- er,
however
poorly
Osama Bin Laden -- I've Kevin Carson
planned and execut-
seen much speculation
ed the attacks have
on what kind of big ter-
ror attack we can expect in retaliation. But been, they were conducted in accordance
if Al Qaeda was capable of a large-scale, with a brilliant strategic vision of maxi-
spectacular reprisal attack, I think they'd mizing bang for the buck in terms of the
already have done it between 9-11 and U.S. government stupidity they provoke.
now. Their actual pattern since then has An attempt to smuggle explosives on a
been one of poorly organized, penny ante plane doesn't have to be anything more
attacks, carried out by poorly trained peo- than crude and ineffectual, because TSA's
ple -- suggesting that they picked the low- knee-jerk overreaction -- not blowing up
the plane -- is the real goal. The goal is to
hanging fruit on 9-11.
make the passenger screen-
ing process, the x-raying of
all cargo, etc., so onerous,
humiliating, expensive and
time-consuming that air
traffic shrinks radically
and the U.S. economy
takes a hit. The goal is for
the American people to see
their government as intru-
sive, arbitrary, and callous.
The goal is also for the U.S. govern-
It's quite plausible that, given enough
incompetent attempts, somebody will ment, in response, to stay bogged down in
eventually succeed in detonating a bomb endless wars in the Islamic world, radical-
and blowing up a plane in the air. Enough izing people there and causing them to see
monkeys with enough typewriters and the U.S. as a crusader army -- in the mean-
enough time, and all that. But even if it time wearying and demoralizing the U.S.
happens, the damage will be limited to the population and bankrupting the govern-
passengers on one plane out of millions of ment. To paraphrase the late Mr. Bin
flights in any one year. With hardened Laden, it's only necessary for a couple of
cockpits and passengers who understand brothers with "Al Qaeda" written on a
that the goal of hijacking has changed, it piece of cloth to show themselves in
will never be possible to fly a plane into a Antarctica, and the President will send
high-value target again. And it's unlikely Marines to fight the penguins there "so we
all the TSA security theater in the airports, won't have to fight them here."
aimed at preventing the previous attack,
Read the rest of this story online at
is good for anything except satisfying the
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"Well, we have to do SOMETHING!"
the U.S. experienced a moral
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