Trump’s Racism and America’s Racist History Are On the 2024 Presidential Election Ballot

Racism is an important propelling force for Trump. There remains significant racism in America which Trump nurtures to his advantage. In the Trump Presidency, his early signals of ”good people on both sides” in Charlottesville brought white supremacists and antisemites out from under rocks.

Evangelicals who support Trump seek more than an abortion ban; they seek to end immigration of people of color. Trump recently stated that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” reminiscent of Hitler’s promotion of an Aryan race, and demonstrating his desire to be a white dictator. The bond between the evangelicals and white thugs like the KKK and the Proud Boys is an oxymoron. Yet, the enthusiasm for Trump has a common denominator– white supremacy. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley proved that pandering to racist Republicans was too important to her campaign to comment on slavery in the Civil War. She uncomfortably slithered away from the topic, refusing to acknowledge slavery as the cause of the Civil War or even discuss slavery. In fact, Haley has denied that we have been a racist country.

MAGA Trumpers do not seek the advancement of people of color to have rights equal to white, Christian citizens. Trump has ignited the frustrated base of White Americans who believe they are threatened by people of color. At least some are seemingly ready to use force to get a proven racist back in the White House. The Trump base seems to favor the fascist approach—ban books and censor history curriculums to deny any mention of slavery and racism in America.

Anti-Trumpers must face the reality of American racism and what we can and will do to create greater equality for our people. Black Americans appear to be less willing to vote for Biden’s reelection. Democrats must react. A Trump victory would be the end of American democracy and racism would flourish.

We are, and have been, a racist country from the beginning, albeit less so today than for the centuries that preceded us. What could be more racist than slavery of African people? Racism and the inferiority of people of African descent were declared by the U.S. Supreme Court as the Supreme Law of the Land in 1857 in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. The notorious and shameful decision, written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, disgraced the Court and our country. The decision declared that the Constitution did not apply to Blacks, since they were not intended by our founders to be included as “citizens.” Taney went on to explain that there is a “perpetual and impassable barrier” between the White race and Blacks. Taney actually referred to Blacks as “beings of an inferior order.” This is the worst Supreme Court decision ever rendered.

It was, however, repudiated by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the passage in 1865 of both the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment’s first section, guaranteeing citizenship for all who were born or naturalized in the U.S.

American Whites lost their right to own slaves after more than 200 years, until 1863, when Black people became forever free under the Emancipation Proclamation. The Whites’ perception of the inferiority of Black people nevertheless persisted thereafter and racism continued.

Speaking to the White readers, did you grow up in a racist community? Did you hear n####r jokes? Did you laugh about them? Did you retell them? Did you hear or make negative comments about Black people? Did you live in a totally White community? Was there a perceived crisis over a Black family moving into your neighborhood? Was there a Whites only mentality where you grew up? Was it forbidden for young Whites to date Black girls and boys?

If the Whites said no to the first question above, would you change your mind now? Like many Whites (of which I am one), I never felt that I would do anything that was unfair to Blacks or anyone else. Therefore, I was not a racist. Nevertheless, the perception that Blacks were inferior to Whites was around many White communities in both subtle and blatant ways. Many Whites didn’t know, and still don’t know, anyone who is Black in our purposely segregated society. Segregation has sustained our openly racist culture.

Abraham Lincoln no doubt knew that true freedom for emancipated Black people would take time. Would he have expected that one hundred years later, a civil rights leader, like Martin Luther King, would still be declaring that he had a dream that true freedom for Blacks would occur in America?

After President Lincoln’s death, Blacks remained isolated from Whites. Strong and successful efforts were made to prohibit Blacks from voting with Jim Crow laws and intimidation. Lynchings of Black men were common in some states for many years. Organized racism, like the Ku Klux Klan, gave violent voice to racial hatred. For years, the Klan and its members were publicly known and received approval in many quarters.

American history shows advances in the freedoms of Black Americans, followed by backsliding to more racist suppression. More than 30 years after Blacks were freed and guaranteed citizenship, the Constitution was tortuously interpreted to the detriment of Black citizens. Our country made segregation of Black Americans the Supreme Law of the Land in 1896. In Plessy v. Ferguson, by a vote of 7-1, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the 14^th Amendment, requiring equal protection of the law, was not violated because Blacks had equal quality facilities. This contorted and disgraceful opinion gave rise to the “Separate But Equal” doctrine.  As a U.S. Constitutional ruling, all states were obliged to comply. The racist opinion was arguably one of the worst Supreme Court opinions in our civil rights history, second only to the Dred Scott decision. The Court itself, other than dissenting Justice Harlan, was as reprehensible as the Dred Scott bench. There are other contenders for shameful Justices and other pathetic reasoning at the Supreme Court but Separate But Equal dehumanized American citizens the way Dred Scott did.

Thus, the U. S. Supreme Court promulgated a racist practice that lasted more than a half century, 58 years, until 1954, when the opinion was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education.

Nineteen years after the Separate But Equal doctrine, a U.S. President reinforced racism in America.

In 1915, DW Griffith released the remarkably popular Civil War epic movie, The Birth of a Nation, which portrayed the members of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes and martyrs. The Birth of a Nation was the first film to be seen in the White House and it was viewed during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. For many, Wilson was looked upon with disdain for having a White House gathering for so racist a film. Wilson was a racist. He championed segregation, overseeing the segregation of federal agencies and rolling back civil rights progress that had been previously made. He wrote a history textbook lauding the Confederacy and the KKK. (Many years later, academic institutions removed his name from their buildings because of his racism.)

A half century after the Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, we had an American President, Woodrow Wilson, who sanctioned racism in our country. A sitting President signaled that it’s acceptable to be a racist, opening the prospects for racial violence.

No white supremacist can tolerate economic success of Black Americans and certainly not Black lawyers, doctors and successful businessmen and women. Least of all, could low-rent, unsuccessful Whites bear to recognize the flourishing community of the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country, known as Black Wall Street.

In two days in 1921, white rioters murdered Black citizens and bombed and burned the community, destroying 35 blocks of Greenwood. When the dust settled, as many as 300 Blacks were murdered and over 6,000 hospitalized. This glaring example of ruthless attacks on Blacks without provocation is one of countless atrocities committed by white supremacists.

Overturning Separate But Equal in Brown v. Board was a watershed opinion in 1954, but it was not, standing alone, a panacea. A year later, in 1955, a 14-year-old Black boy named Emmett Till was savagely beaten and murdered for whistling at a white girl in Mississippi. The young boy’s murder was not an isolated occurrence.

Similarly, segregation did not go away either. Mortgage lenders and White citizens ignored the overturning of Separate But Equal, creating the red-lining of White residential communities. Black people were prohibited from obtaining loans in all- White neighborhoods. Segregation was outlawed, but widely practiced and rarely challenged.

Segregation has long been a critical component of sustained racism. Any remnants of such practice must be eliminated. Multi-racial neighborhoods bring people together. We realize how much we have in common. We become better friends. Years ago, as a young lawyer, I felt that the long-term answer to hateful racism was for all races to intermarry. We would all be some shade of brown and no one would any longer care about the color of someone’s skin.

“Freedom” for African-American citizens to marry anyone of their choosing was not assured until 1967. Beginning in the Colonial era, colonies and states had laws banning miscegenation, that is, any marriage or interbreeding among different races. This gross interference with civil rights produced yet another reprehensible U.S. Supreme Court decision. In 1883, the Court in Pace v. Alabama drew the toxic conclusion that the Alabama anti-miscegenation law was Constitutional because it punished Black people and White people equally. Again, our highest court in the land declared that racist interference with the personal intimacy of marriage was Constitutional.

Richard and Mildred Love were married in Virginia in violation of the state’s anti-miscegenation law, since Richard was White and Mildred was Black. Finally, in 1967, these revolting laws interfering with the love relationship of two American citizens were declared Unconstitutional in Love v. Virginia.

Questions of racial bias continue to this day. During the week of December 11, 2023, just before Christmas, 6 men from different parts of the country were exonerated after decades of imprisonment for wrongfully alleged crimes when they were teenagers or young adults. Your first guess, America, would be correct. They were all men of color.

Today, there are still racist elected officials in our country, although their bias may be less overt in public. There are, however, other elected “leaders” who betray who they really are. Governor DeSantis of Florida, for example, touted how Black people developed skills in slavery. Most of us regard rationalizing the dehumanization of enslaved people as overtly racist.

Right-wing Trumpers don’t want their children to learn about racism in American schools, advancing ridiculous justifications. Our children, MAGA people would say, will feel guilty for atrocities that occurred years ago. People like the Governor of Florida show their utter lack of wisdom in censoring American history. Young people will not let someone they perceive to be a book-burning, neo-Nazi dictate what they are allowed to learn. Young, anti-Vietnam student protesters in the 1960s defied their ultra-conservative, pro-Nixon parents. Truth among young people will overcome MAGA efforts to create the GOP version of Hitler youth. Intelligent young people will not allow government and narrow-minded, unqualified parents to dictate their academic curriculum.

In Florida and other states, where book-banning occurs, young students need to learn history elsewhere. It should be unsettling to all that we now have a racist former president who seeks reelection. Trump will endorse and pardon racist and other Unconstitutional and criminal behavior if he is allowed to return to the White House.

We must be what we have already become, a diverse population. Therefore, we have to be focused upon fairness and equality for all our citizens, first and foremost. Republicans have no platform, let alone a constructive one. We have made progress in curtailing racism in our lifetime. We will learn more from our racist history on how we can efficiently eradicate the racial hatred that still exists. We have Black judges, lawyers, prosecutors, doctors and many elected officials, both men and women. Despite the successes of Black Americans today, there are ongoing efforts by political right-wingers to minimize and discredit their accomplishments.

In a Washington Post article written by the renown Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Eugene Robinson, exposed the motivations of those whose pressure caused the resignation of Claudine Gay, the first Black President of Harvard University. Mr. Robinson recognized the vulnerability of Ms. Gay’s position despite her proven competency, but highlighted the intent of her detractors to press for her resignation. The Harvard President “was forced out by a right-wing pressure campaign orchestrated by bitter opponents of diversity.” One of those opponents, Republican activist Charles Kirk, Executive Director of the conservative group Turning Point, stated: “One unqualified diversity hire down, just a few million to go.”  Far-right activist Christopher Rufo’s statement to Politico was equally shameless: his “primary objective is to eliminate the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) bureaucracy in every institution in America.”

President Biden has been an empathetic leader and wisely selected Kamela Harris as his Vice President, the first woman and person of color to hold such office. She couldn’t be a greater leader to carry the banner of eliminating racism in our country with great conviction. Kamala Harris can build upon what has been achieved with their leadership, carrying us forward. “We won’t go back.” She and her Vice President, Tim Walz, are the genuine leaders among us—not the sleazy con artist who cares only for himself.

Racism does not characterize all of us Americans. In fact, racists are a minority of us, albeit a highly dangerous one. We are the majority of voters and we’re more than simply not racists. We are anti-racism in our country. We are against this evil and we won’t tolerate it. We will advocate equality and live what we preach. Yet we still have a distance to travel.

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