Crowd at Donald Trump’s “African American Town Hall” Seems Pretty White

As Jim Wallis, author of the book, “Race America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America”, has said again and again in the months since his book was published, race – or more specifically, the way in which generation after generation of Americans have to some degree accepted the idea that race mitigates the type of life and even citizenship that different Americans merit – amounts to this country’s continuing sin.

Introducing Trump Wednesday morning, he said all voters but “especially black people” need Trump, that “every white woman should cast a vote for Donald Trump” and accidentally said the N-word.

The BBC’s Anthony Zurcher says Mr Trump’s recent overtures to the black community may be aimed primarily at assuring moderate white voters of his racial sensitivity.

NBC News reported that the image that Trump presents of black communities “tends to hyperbolize the black experience in America and plays into stereotypes about the experience of African-Americans in the United States that does not match the reality”.

Go to the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture after it opens in Washington, D.C., this weekend and see what it was like.

Trump also tied the eruption of violent protests on Wednesday night to drugs, saying that “drugs are a very, very big factor in what you’re watching on television at night” – though he offered no evidence to back up that claim. After all, his rise to political prominence came as a result of overtly racist talking points and “Alt-right” fervor.

But what about in more recent years? After all, Trump is only pulling 1 percent of the African-American vote, compared to the 5 percent Mitt Romney drew in the 2012 election.

His track-record suggests no, and he can’t wheel out enough black faces to convince me otherwise.

“Attack after attack, from 9/11 to San Bernardino to Orlando, we have seen how failure to screen who is entering the United States puts all of our citizens in great danger”, Trump said.

He made the latest remarks before a mostly-white audience at a rally in rural North Carolina.

The part with which I take exception is the part where President Obama seems to be again waving his finger at the black community, nearly as if the community owes him their support.

“That’s even more appropriate”, Clinton said.

But a Democratic former Gary city councilman, Roy Pratt, calls Trump a “slick business dealer” and says, “He got as much as he could and then he pulled up and left”.

While Trump was allegedly keeping black tenants out of his buildings, an employer a few blocks away was likely denying an applicant because of the color of his skin.

There have been riots on the streets of Charlotte, a major city in a swing state coveted by each of the major party’s presidential candidates. Trump, more than most, has played a direct role in preserving the structure of white supremacy. Republicans like Trump are advocates for school choice programs, including charter schools, that disproportionately help black students escape bad schools.

Pastor Scott, the host of the town hall event this evening, consistently stumbles on TV just to justify his chosen candidate’s experience and background. “And it is exactly the message he will be conveying for the weeks ahead to African-Americans, young people, old people and anyone who needs an extra boost to remember what is at stake”. Not his personal history – which is blotched with racial prejudice; and certainly not the campaign he’s run: one that has been fueled by fear, violence, and mounting lies.