michaela
Trump had been criticized earlier in the campaign for failing to immediately denounce the endorsement of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
BUT
Trump defended a white supremacists rally. Sad.
During a press conference about infrastructure held at Trump Tower on Aug. 15, President Donald Trump said that “both sides,” including the “alt-left” were to blame for the violent rally in Charlottesville, VA.
Donald Trump is a man of famously definite opinions. Whether it be about Mexicans, Muslims, or Mueller, he knows what he thinks and isn’t shy about sharing.
So it was telling, one year ago this weekend, when he refused to take a stand.
Meaning, of course, Charlottesville and the white supremacist rally that shocked that town and the wide world beyond. Bad enough a motley mob of tiki torch-bearing bigots marched under Confederate flags. But then a car plowed through a crowd of counter protesters, and Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old waitress and paralegal, was killed.
In the moment of airless shock that came after, we did what Americans instinctively do at such times: turned to the president to steel our resolve, speak our overflowing hearts, help us make sense of a senseless thing. That’s what Obama would have done, what Clinton or the Bushes would have done. But this time, the president was Donald Trump, and he did something else.
KKK newspaper The Crusader, the voice of “The Few, The Proud, The Fed Up” and the exclusively alabaster, has made it official.
“Make America Great Again” its front page howls, atop an editorial piece endorsing the Republican candidate and discussing its feeling of alienation in a “new” America.
“We are living among people who have been disconnected from the spirit, values, morals and faiths of our forefathers,” it whines, adding that “America was great not because of what our forefathers did – but because of who our forefathers were. America was founded as a White Christian Republic.”
The Crusader is the paper of choice for the KKK and White Christian racists across America. The front page was written by Pastor Thomas Robb, national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and the edition links to several KKK sites and features fan letters from Klan supporters in the police.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and R. Emmett Tyrrell, editor-in-chief of American Spectator, went toe-to-toe on BBC Newsnight to talk Trump. Things started to get hairy when journalist Emily Maitlis brought up the Ku Klux Klan’s support of Donald Trump and Tyrrell attempted to downplay the organization’s role in Trump’s election
Adichie said, “You know, I find it really interesting. It seems to be a refusal to accept reality. So, [Maitlis] asked a question about the KKK and it hasn’t been engaged with, and instead we’re being told that there’s this other group called the Knights of whoever … The point is, the KKK exists. The KKK endorsed Donald Trump. The KKK stands for white supremacy, and that has to be acknowledged.”
Later in the discussion, as Tyrrell continued to insist Trump hasn’t been racist, she added, “I am sorry, but if you are a white man you don’t get to define what racism is … No, you don’t get to sit there and say that he hasn’t been racist when objectively, he has.”
Tyrrell, who was at various points talking over both Adichie and Maitlis, launched into an explanation of the Marxist theory of false consciousness, and complained, “I can’t even open my mouth here because I am a white male.” Then he twisted himself into a pretzel defending Trump’s comment about Judge Curiel, noting that when he himself looked at the judge, “He didn’t look any color other than my color.”
Check out the clip and marvel at Adichie’s incredible patience and excellent fashion sense.
more
Chimamanda Adichie to Trump supporters: “If you’re a white man, you don’t get to define what racism is”
The Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a scathing indictment of Donald Trump’s campaign yesterday, questioning whether the president-elect’s behavior would change after his election.
Speaking with the BBC’s Newsnight on Nov. 11, Adichie appeared alongside the conservative editor of the American Spectator magazine, Robert Emmett Tyrrell. The two clashed over how Trump will govern as president, and what the endorsement of the right wing extremist group Ku Klux Klan meant for his presidency.
“I think what we should do is look at Trump for who Trump has told us and shown us that he is,” Adichie said. “So let’s look at what he has said on the campaign trail. The only way we can judge the kind of president he will be is based on the campaign that he ran.”
Tyrrell dismissed the endorsement of the KKK, saying, “I can’t imagine anybody more marginal to American election than the KKK.” Tyrrell also refused to acknowledge that Trump was racist, dismissing House speaker Paul Ryan’s description of Trump’s remarks as “textbook racism.”
Adichie responded: “If you’re a white man, you don’t get to define what racism is. … You don’t get to sit there and say that he hasn’t been racist, when objectively he has. And it’s not about your opinion. There are objective things, racism is an objective reality, and Donald Trump has inhabited that reality.”
The interview was Adichie’s latest foray into the 2016 US elections. In June, the renowned feminist published a short story called The Arrangements, in which she took readers into the intimate lives of the Trump family through the eyes of the future first lady, Melania Trump. Adichie was also one of four writers who penned thank-you notes in the New York Times to first lady Michelle Obama.
