(Todd A. Smith)
President Donald Trump reposting a video on Truth Social that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Michelle Lady Michelle Obama as gorillas/apes is predictable behavior for a known racist.
President Trump has a history of racist remarks about people from predominantly Black countries like Haiti and Somalia.
Trump has a history of discriminating against Black renters in New York City.
He has a history of seeking the death penalty for innocent Black and Brown boys, while pardoning White thugs who attempted to overthrow democracy on Jan. 6.
The current president has a history of saying racist things like Black people relate to him because of his mug shot, as if everyone in the Black community is a 34-time convicted felon.
Although many of his Black and White supporters claim he is not a racist, his current administration has gone out of their way to erase Black history from memory.
He has attempted to stop students from learning about the role racism and White supremacy has played in the foundation of America.
His administration has targeted predominantly Black cities like Atlanta and Detroit for alleged voter fraud, which is just a blatant attempt to disenfranchise Black voters.
Trump has dismantled affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs because he falsely believes it helps Black Americans more than it does White women.
Therefore, it was only a matter of time before he posted or said something so demonstratively racist that only racists could deny his bigotry.
And make no mistakes about it.
Anyone who is not calling Trump out, or making excuses for him, for his Truth Social gorilla post is a blatant racist or they are comfortable with anti-Black racism, like White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The press secretary said, “This is from an Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
News flash.
The outrage is not fake.
However, Leavitt’s excuse is fake because why did the video choose to make the first Black president and the first Black first lady the gorillas and not a White politician knowing the gorillas have been compared to Black people since forever?
Therefore, to say that the video was just a play on the “Lion King” is total nonsense.
Furthermore, the American public cares about racism, especially when it comes directly from the commander-in-chief.
Trump’s racist immigration policies have led to deaths and American rights being threatened.
Under Trump, American citizens of color are getting dragged out of their house for no rhyme or reason.
Because of Trump and MAGA racism, Americans of color, especially those with an accent, have been profiled and targeted by I.C.E. officials, while illegal White immigrants seemingly get off Scot free.
As a result of Trump’s racist anti-immigration policies, people of color are scared to send their children to school.
Members of predominantly minority churches are scared to worship.
Trump’s minions like Steve Bannon have called for I.C.E. agents to surround voting booths in November to scare of voters who do not support Republicans, many of them being people of color.
But Leavitt has the nerve to say that journalists should report on things that actually matter to Americans.
Young lady, those journalists are reporting on things that matter to the American public.
Unfortunately, your boss does not care at all about America.
He only cares about himself and his power.
And one way to hold on to his power is to hold on to the White patriarchal and racist American system that has allowed him to thrive in the first place.
But Leavitt’s response is just as predictable as Trump’s repost on Truth Social.
I have worked alongside many White conservative media personalities for years.
And for years, I have known that if they are not racist, they have no problem with anti-Black racism.
When comedian Roseanne Barr called Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to President Obama, an ape, I caught a lot of pushback from a conservative talk show radio host in Houston who did not believe a White woman calling a Black woman an ape was racist.
He asked me, what if Barr did not know that she was using a racist slur?
I replied that I highly doubt that a senior-citizen White woman who was a grown woman during the Civil Rights Movement did not know she was using a racist slur.
In fact, Jarrett was not the only Black woman that Barr had referred to as that same animal.
I told him calling a Black person an animal was extremely racist because there was a time in American history when Black people were listed with the animals on the Census.
Barr had to know this piece of American history.
Trump knows this too.
That is why he is trying so hard to erase America’s racist history from textbooks, museums and monuments.
The radio host asked me if I had heard of a certain homophobic slur.
I told him that I had not.
But if I had ever used the term, and a member of the LGBT community told me how offensive it was to them, I would never use it again.
I said that because I believe when you know better, you should do better.
Trump and his brown-nosers know better.
However, they refuse to do better.
His supporters make excuses for his racism.
Then many turn around and wonder why the country is so divided racially.
It is the same predictable playbook.
Do, or say, something racist.
Deny the racism.
Blame the people that suffer from the racism.
That is America, and Trump specifically, in a nutshell.
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