Section:GDN 1N PaGe:18 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 19:37 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 31 July 2019
18Trump escalates
racism row as
black leaders snub
keynote speech
Adam Gabbatt
New YorkDonald Trump yesterday waded fur-
ther into the race row he sparked with
a weekend attack on a senior African
American legislator and his Baltimore
district, as black leaders boycotted
an event at which the president was
speaking in Virginia.
Trump said those who stayed away
were acting “against their own peo-
ple”, while claiming as he left the
White House to fl y to the event that
his disparagement of Baltimore was
“helping” his political standing.
The commemoration in James-
town, Virginia, mark ed the 400th
anniversary of democracy in the US.
The fi rst meeting of a representative
legislative assembly in the western
hemisphere took place on 30 July 1619,
convened by George Yeardley as gov-
ernor of the new British colony.
Next month will mark the 400th
anniversary of the arrival of the fi rst
African slaves in America, when the
fi rst slave ship docked, also in Virginia.
Trump remarked on the “horrors of
slavery” in his speech at yesterday’s
event. Just hours earlier, however,
he had returned to Twitter to call the
senior Democratic congressman Eli-
jah Cummings a racist, continuing an
attack on the African American legis-
lator he began on Sunday.
Trump also called the Rev Al Sharp-
ton a racist after the prominent civil
rights campaigner and media person-
ality rushed to Baltimore from his base
in New York on Monday to defend the
city’s residents and Cummings.
The attacks follow Trump’s exhorta-
tions to four congresswomen of colour
earlier in the month that they should
“go back to where they came from”
even though they are US citizens. He
then looked on impassively as the
audience at the rally in North Carolinachanted “send her back” about one of
the four, Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, the
fi rst member of Congress to wear hijab
in the legislative chamber.
Yesterday, senior Democratic pol-
iticians, including Virginia’s House
Democratic leader and Democratic
caucus chair, and every member of
the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus
stayed away during Trump’s speech
in Jamestown.
Others used Trump’s visit to lecture
the president on the ideals of democ-
racy and make a series of thinly veiled
criticisms of Trump throughout the
day-long commemoration.
The tone was set early, when Vir-
ginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph
Northam, off ered a rebuttal of Trump’s
racism during an 8am ceremony.
“We know our diversity is our
strength and we welcome immigrants,
refugees and all who like those who
stood on this spot 400 years ago come
to Virginia in search of a better life,”
Northam said.
“Our doors are open and our lights
are on, no matter who you are, no mat-
ter who you love and no matter where
you came from, you are welcome in
Virginia. There is nothing, nothing
more American than that.”
The black caucus said their absence
was because “the participation of the
president is antithetical to the prin-
ciples for which the caucus stands”.
They added: “The commemora-
tion of the birth of this nation and its
democracy will be tarnished unduly
with the participation of the president ,
who continues to make degrading
comments toward minority leaders,
promulgate policies that harm mar-
ginalised communities, and use racist
and xenophobic rhetoric.”
Before departing for the event,
Trump spoke to reporters outside the
White House, claiming that he was
“the least racist person that there is
anywhere in the world”.
Trump claimed : “The African
American people have been calling
the White House. They have never
been so happy as [sic] what a presi-
dent has done.”
An hour later a Quinnipiac poll
revealed that 80% of black people
thought Trump was racist.
There is disagreement among
commentators about whether the
president is speaking from the gut or
whether it is a carefully crafted race-
baiting strategy to consolidate his base
and win over enough white swing vot-
ers to achieve re-election in 2020.David Smith
BaltimoreT
wo Kevins stood on
the front steps of a
fading terrace house in
West Baltimore, killing
time on a hot Monday
afternoon. Asked about
Donald Trump’s racist tweets about
the city, they did not mince words.
“Tell his bitch ass to come down
here and give some people some
jobs, because he never had to live
in no poverty-type situation,” said
Kevin Johnson, 26, a mechanic. The
other Kevin, 25, who survived beingshot in 2012 and preferred not to give
his last name, added: “Trump uses
Twitter to try to bring everybody
down. If you really care, come and
do something. There’s not a rec
[recreation centre] in sight. There’s
not a pool in sight. The majority
of kids are probably at home
playing video games. If you want
to do something, put some youth
programmes in West Baltimore.”
Trump picked another racial scab
at the weekend when, triggered by
an item on Fox News, he fi red off
more than a dozen tweets attacking
the Democratic congressman Elijah
Cummings, calling his black majority
district “disgusting”, the “worst inthe USA”, a “rat and rodent-infested
mess” and a “dangerous and fi lthy
place” where “no human being
would want to live”. On Monday,
he was demanding that Cummings,
who chairs the House oversight
committee, investigate himself.
Attempts to divide America by
race go hand in hand with attempts
to divide it by geography. Trump has
repeatedly demonised cities with
common characteristics: Democratic
leadership, big minority populations
and few Trump voters.
Yet his narrative contains a
curious dichotomy. On the one hand,
cities are the bastions of liberal elites
who look down on “deplorables” in
the heartland. On the other, they are
the loci of poverty, criminal gangs
and illegal immigrants.
Either way, Trump appears to
position himself as the president
of not all Americans but only the
voters from small towns and rural
areas who attend his race-baiting
campaign rallies. This is despite
many of them facing the same
problems as inner cities: lack of
investment, limited transport, dying
main streets, the opioid epidemic.‘[He] continues to
make degrading
comments toward
minority leaders
and use racist and
xenophobic rhetoric’Black leaders’ statement
on their boycottBaltimore Come and
do something if you
care, president told
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