Donald Trump‘s National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) interview in late July 2024 was hard to watch, as the former president made many outlandish statements including he was the best president for Black Americans since Abe Lincoln. Trump then went on to question when the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, “happened to turn Black.”
Trump’s absolute meltdown in front of a largely Black audience caused his handlers to cut things off early and sent shockwaves of panic through the GOP. Harris, for the record, has long been open about her mixed Jamaican and South Asian heritage. And Harris was born in California, anyway, so she’s American and her ethnic and cultural background isn’t relevant to her presidential eligibility.
However this, after all, is the same person who questioned Barack Obama’s nationality. And he wonders why most people think he’s racist. Trump even refuses to pronounce Kamala’s name correctly in the NABJ interview and elsewhere with a note of “othering” disdain.
That’s what Omarosa Manigault Newman, Trump’s former White House aide and reality star, who has since reconsidered her Trump support, pointed out in a CNN interview among a panel of pundits unpacking Trump’s NABJ disaster.
Is Trump Swedish, German, or Irish?
Omarosa begins her CNN comments by highlighting the double standard applied to political candidates with non-European backgrounds through Trump’s shifting definition of his own ethnic heritage. “I recall in his book Art of the Deal,” Omarosa says, “he identified himself as Swedish,” even though his father was German and his mother was Irish, but thought Swedish would play better to his clientele. Why doesn’t Trump hold himself to the same standards he suggests Harris should be held to?
“Donald doesn’t know the difference between ancestry and race,” Omarosa says. “Nor does he understand the nuances of how people self-identify.” And that ought to disqualify him for the presidency, Omarosa says. She then touches on how Trump mispronounces Harris’ first name “as a slur. He does it intentionally to harm her. He does it to make people see the otherness of Kamala Harris,” she says.
Not to mention how Trump says ‘black’
Social media comments were generally supportive of Omarosa’s scathing takedown of how Trump treats Harris and his views on race, heritage, and ethnicity. One commenter took it further, and added, “And the way Donold says ‘Blaack’ he says it with such a stench and vitriol like he hates Black people so much he can’t even stand to be around the word Black.”
On the topic of Kamala’s name, one comment added, “He is using it to try to demonize her- put her down – like he is above her- pure racism and sexism. That should p**s everyone off. Hitler effect – not going back to that nazi belittling. He is not fit to be anything -not even shark bait.”
Still, many commenters failed to get the point, and by doing so, revealed the rampant sexism and racism in Trump’s base, disparaging Harris, and Omaroa, and minimizing the shocking things Trump said at the NABJ interview. We won’t repeat what some comments said, but suffice it to say, Trump must feel right at home among his followers.
Published: Aug 2, 2024 02:46 pm