Racism
In the 1970s, Trump was sued twice by the U.S. Justice Department for discriminating against black people who wanted to rent housing from his father's company. He started his political career by arguing falsely and repeatedly that Barack Obama was not a United States citizen, and he later lied about having found evidence in support of his claims. During the presidential campaign, Trump was denounced by politicians on the right and left after saying a U.S. district judge of Mexican ancestry couldn't be unbiased in the Trump University fraud suit because of his heritage. House Speaker Paul Ryan said, "Claiming a person can’t do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable."
Timeline
| 1989.09.05 | Trump says blacks have a tremendous advantage over whites when looking for jobs. newsone.com (See also Black Americans) |
| 1991.05.10 | The President of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino publishes a book where he quotes Trump as saying he thinks laziness is a trait in the blacks and he only wants Jews counting his money. web.archive.org (See also Black Americans, Jewish Americans, Anti-Semitism) |
| 1992.12.06 | Trump is fined 200,000$ by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement for not allowing blacks or women onto his casino floor while personal friend and racist Mafia leader is gambling. yahoo.com (See also Criminality, Women, Sexism, Black Americans) |
| 2005 | Sound Technician on "The Apprentice" says Trump repeatedly called him a "F*cking Monkey." buzzfeed.com (See also Black Americans) He also said Trump verbally harassed women on set. |
| 2014.11.25 | Trump says that because of Obama there won't be another black president for generations. newsone.com (See also Black Americans) |
| 2015.08.27 | Trump responds to praise from White Supremacists with: "Everyone likes me." talkingpointsmemo.com (See also 2016 Campaign, Black Americans) |
| 2016.05.10 | Trump selects a White Nationalist Leader to be a Delegate in California. motherjones.com (See also 2016 Campaign, Black Americans) |
| 2016.06.21 | Trump has only Black GOP official kicked out of event with no explanation. rawstory.com (See also Black Americans, 2016 Campaign) |
| 2016.07.22 | Trump gives White Supremacists VIP seating at the GOP Convention. littlegreenfootballs.com (See also Black Americans, 2016 Campaign) |
| 2016.12.21 | Comedian Tom Arnold claims to have tape of Trump saying the N-Word. mynorthwest.com (See also Black Americans) |
| 2017.01.23 | Trump administration posts a statement on White House website that says "The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong," and calls Black Lives Matter movement "a threat." edition.cnn.com (See also First 100 Days, Black Americans) |
| 2017.02.28 | Betsy DeVos backtracks after fierce backlash to her statement that historically black colleges and universities were “real pioneers” of school choice. nytimes.com (See also First 100 Days, Betsy DeVos, Department of Education) |
| 2017.02.28 | Trump begins his address to a joint session of Congress by condemning the recent wave of bomb threats at Jewish community centers and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries. npr.org (See also Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.03.01 | NAACP releases a statement in response to Betsy DeVos' misappropriation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities as school choice. naacp.org (See also Betsy DeVos, Department of Education) |
| 2017.03.04 | Actor and U.N Goodwill Ambassador Don Cheadle says Donald Trump once asked family friend: "Would you ever f*ck a n*gger?" avclub.com (See also Black Americans) |
| 2017.03.20 | Trump brags he's made NFL coaches afraid to hire Black Lives Matter protestor Colin Kaepernick, a veteran quarterback. chicagotribune.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior, Black Americans) |
| 2017.03.24 | White supremacist James Jackson is charged with murdering Timothy Caughman, a black man. According to NY prosecutor Joan Illuzzi, Jackson's stated goal was to "kill as many black men as he could." aljazeera.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.03.27 | During a press briefing, Sean Spicer refuses to comment on a direct question about the stabbing death of Timothy Caughman, a black man, allegedly by a white supremacist, instead pivoting to anti-Semitic bomb threats purportedly made by a Jewish teen. whitehouse.gov (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.08.02 | Two close associates of Pope Francis have accused American Catholic ultraconservatives of making an alliance of “hate” with evangelical Christians to back President Trump, focusing on Steve Bannon as a “supporter of an apocalyptic geopolitics” that has stymied action against climate change and exploited fears of migrants and Muslims with calls for “walls and purifying deportations.” nytimes.com (See also Steve Bannon, Muslims, Nationalism) |
| 2017.08.08 | Three days after a bomb exploded at a mosque in suburban Minneapolis, a White House official said he isn't yet convinced the attack was not a "fake hate crime." buzzfeed.com (See also Muslims) Trump still hasn't said anything about the bombing, which tore through part of the mosque on Saturday while people were arriving for prayers. |
| 2017.08.10 | Sam Clovis, Donald Trump's pick to be chief scientist for the Department of Agriculture, pushed unfounded theories about then-President Barack Obama's upbringing and called then-Attorney General Eric Holder a "racist black." cnn.com (See also Department of Agriculture, False Statements) Sam Clovis, Donald Trump's pick to be chief scientist for the Department of Agriculture, pushed unfounded theories about then-President Barack Obama's upbringing and called then-Attorney General Eric Holder a "racist black," a CNN KFile review of Clovis's writings and radio broadcasts during 2012 and 2013 has found. |
| 2017.08.15 | In a long, combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president repeatedly rejected a torrent of bipartisan criticism for waiting two days before naming the right-wing groups and placing blame on “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd. nytimes.com (See also Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2017.08.15 | Weeks before a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to three deaths and 19 injuries, the Trump administration revoked a grant to Life After Hate, a group that works to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. huffingtonpost.com (See also Department of Homeland Security, Anti-Semitism, Muslims) |
| 2017.08.16 | Two of Donald Trump’s councils of top business leaders are disbanding following Tuesday’s controversial remarks by the president about the weekend’s violence in Virginia. wsj.com (See also Anti-Semitism, Nationalism) Mr. Trump tweeted Wednesday that he was ending the councils, only *after* one of the councils had planned to disband after a conference call of its executives. |
| 2017.08.16 | White nationalist leader David Duke on Tuesday thanked Trump for blaming violence in Charlottesville, Va., on the "alt-left." thehill.com (See also Anti-Semitism, Nationalism) |
Assessments
Scott Alexander–Slate Star Codex
Alexander considers the question, "Is Trump Racist?", in his November 2016 column, You Are Still Crying Wolf.
I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he’s “the candidate of the KKK” and “the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement” is made up. It’s a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. ...
How could Trump insult a Mexican judge just for being Mexican? I don’t know. How could Trump insult a disabled reporter just for being disabled? How could Trump insult John McCain just for being a beloved war hero? Every single person who’s opposed him, Trump has insulted in various offensive ways, including 140 separate incidents of him calling someone “dopey” or “dummy” on Twitter, and you expect him to hold his mouth just because the guy is a Mexican?
Jamelle Bouie–Slate
On Feb. 6, 2017 Bouie examined the White Nationalist project and advocates taking root in the White House, examining an essay written under the pseudonym, Publius Decius Mus:
he wrote, hailing the real estate mogul as the only figure who understood the stakes, who would beat back these “foreigners” and preserve America’s democratic tradition as Decius saw it. Not a tradition of pluralism, but one of exclusion, in which white Americans stand as the only legitimate players in political life. A dictatorship of the herrenvolk.