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Is Donald Trump Racist? Here's What the Record ShowsJUNE 7, 2016
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REAL ESTATEDONALD TRUMP
Is Donald Trump Racist? Here's What the Record Shows
COMMENTARYby
Michael D'AntonioJUNE 7, 2016, 5:25 PM EDT
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Photograph by Getty Images
The latest controversy is not a surprise to those who have followed his
career.
Is Donald Trump racist? That question has hung over the presumptive
Republican nominee for president as he has called Mexicans “rapists” and
proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Lately, though, the question has
taken on more urgency as Trump has repeatedly publicly attacked the judge
who presides over Trump University class-action lawsuits. Calling the
American-born Gonzalo Curiel a “Mexican,” he said Curiel was therefore
biased against him, and he added to the flurry of objections by suggesting
that a Muslim judge might also be incapable of hearing a lawsuit involving
any Trump entity.
In between these remarks he managed to offend by singling out a black man at
one of his rallies, calling him “my African American” as if the fellow’s
presence proved Trump was on the right side of the race issue.
For the long followers of Trump’s career, however, none of these incendiary
remarks are especially surprising. Trump has a long record as a provocateur
on matters of race and ethnicity.
It starts in 1973, when the United States Department of Justice went to
court with a discrimination complaint against the Trump family business,
which rented apartments across Brooklyn and Queens. Coming from the
administration of Richard Nixon, who was hardly a civil rights agitator, the
complaint was based on an investigation that found four different Trump
employees confirming that applicants for leases were screened by race. One
rental agent said Trump’s father had told himnot to rent to blacksand
that he actually wanted to reduce the number of African Americans in his
buildings. Three doormen said they had been instructed to deflect blacks who
came to Trump buildings to apply for apartments.
Though just 26 years old at the time, Donald Trump was already president of
the Trump Organization. Rather than work with the government to bring the
company into compliance with the law, as the New York apartment king Sam
LeFrak had done, Trump retained one of the mostnotorious lawyers in the
country, Roy Cohn, and commence an all-out legal war. Cohn, who had been Joe
McCarthy’s chief inquisitor during the senator’s witch hunt for
communists in the government, filed a $410 million lawsuit against the
federal government and smeared the justice department attorneys with terms
such as “storm troopers” and “Gestapo.” Trump complained in the press of
“reverse discrimination” and alleged a “nationwide drive” to force
landlords to “rent to welfare recipients.”
Donald Trump, Mayor Ed Koch, center, and Roy Cohn, right, in October
1983.Photography by Sonia Moskowitz Getty Images
In the early 1970s, “African American” and “welfare” were used
interchangeably and it was a well-established hallmark of dog-whistle
politics, which allowed speakers to appeal to racist beliefs without using
openly racist terms. More whites used welfare assistance than blacks, but
welfare was regarded by some as a special benefit for minorities. In 1980
the coded language that matched welfare with undeserving minorities was
revealed asRonald Reagan spokeof “welfare queens” and “strapping
young bucks.”
Trump’s countersuit in the fair housing case brought against his company
was dismissed by a judge who considered it a “waste of paper.” The Trump
organization eventually accommodated the feds, agreeing to a protocol
intended to address the mistakes of the past.
For two years Trump would be required to supply weekly lists of vacancies to
the Urban League’s Open Housing Center. When vacancies opened up in
buildings where fewer than 10 percent of the tenants were black or Hispanic,
the center would then have three days to submit applications from minority
clients who wanted those apartments. If qualified, they were to get
preference by agreeing to advertise vacancies in newspapers that served the
black community. Trump was alsorequired to advertise vacanciesin
press outlets serving minority communities.
Although he wound up complying with federal regulators on his rental
policies, Trump had successfully staked out his position on race. He was on
the side of those whites who resented civil rights laws intended to redress
racism.
“A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage”
In 1989, he told Bryant Gumbel in an interview, “A well-educated black has
a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market
…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. “ In fact
, all the serious studies refuted that. However his statement did serve as a
kind of shout-out to those who were ignorant about theracial dynamicsin
the U.S. economy.
Earlier in that same year Trump helped fan the flames of racial resentment
when black and Latino teens were arrested in the infamous “Central Park
jogger” attack. Trump alone chose to pay for $85,000 worth offull-page
newspaper adstrumpeting, in capital letters,“BRING BACK THE DEATH
PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!”In the text Trump objected to then-
Mayor Ed Koch’s plea for peace: Mayor Koch stated that “hate and rancor
should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so.”
Trump’s NY Daily News ad on the Central Park Five. (New York Daily News
Archive NY Daily News via Getty Images)
As Trump and other New Yorkers indulged in hate and rancor, the five accused
were subjected to intense interrogation, most without their parents present
, and gave false confessions. After years in prison, they were exonerated by
DNA evidence. A book and a documentary film on the case showed how fear and
race played substantial roles in the wrongful convictions but Trump, who
fanned the flames,remained steadfast in his views. When the men received
compensation for their imprisonment, Trump denounced the payments and
smeared the men by saying, “These young men do not exactly have the past of
angels.”
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it”
Next in the Trump record on race came a 1991 book by John O’Donnell, who
had been president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.O’
Donnell quoted Trump saying,“ Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The
only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys wearing
yarmulkes… Those are the only kind of people I want counting my money.
Nobody else…Besides that, I tell you something else. I think that’s guy’s
lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in
blacks.”
O’Donnell’s report was shocking, but Trump did not contest it at the time.
In 1997 he was interviewed forPlayboyby author Mark Bowden and he
confirmed that the O’Donnell book was “probably true.”
Two years later, when he was seeking the reform party nomination for
president, Trump changed his tune. “I’ve never said anything like that,”
he told Tim Russert onMeet The Press.
The flip-flop that saw Trump affirm John O’Donnell’s reporting and then
deny it, must be weighed against Trump’s clear tendency to see things in
racial terms and then say what he thinks.
A telling moment arose during a 1993 Congressional committee hearing on
gambling casino operated by Indian tribes. Trump, who considered the tribes
competitors, offered a flourish of insensitivity during his testimony when
he said, “They don’t look like Indians to me and they don’t look like
Indians to Indians.”
Trump also said that tribal gaming operators were somehow tied to organized
crime and a scandal was about to erupt. “In the 19 years I have been on
this committee, I have never seen such irresponsible remarks,”Rep.
George Miller (D., Calif.) shouted backto Trump. (Decades later, the
industry is still waiting for the scandal that Trump predicted.)
“Least racist person on earth”
In his businesses, which are private entities not subject to affirmative
action policies, Trump did not establish an impressive record for diversity
in the executive suite. He has spoken often about providing employment to
minority workers, but in 2015The New Yorkerquoteda former Trump
casino worker who said that in the 1980s black employees were hidden from
view when Trump and his wife Ivana were around.
No black or Hispanic executive has ever played a prominent public role in
the Trump business organization. However the foundation run by Eric Trump
includes one African American vice president, Lynn Patton, who is described
on the foundation website as “senior assistant” to Donald Trump’s three
older adult children.
Last year Trump defended himself against complaints about his attitudes by
claiming that he’s the “least racist person on earth.” Except for Patton,
the Trump team has |
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