Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:39 pm
According to Donald Trump, Monday is going to be a big day for him: 100 African-American pastors and evangelical leaders will endorse him. Or so he says. He says a lot of things that are proven to be hugely wrong. But hey, Trump has even set aside time on his busy calendar for the event: 1 pm ET. So we’ll see.
Also breaking: there is a mouse on Mars. And a galaxy that smiles at you. As evidence of extra-terrestrial life, each is more likely than black support for Donald Trump.
Trump hasn’t said who these mystery black people are. Remember, this is the guy who said of a Black Lives Matter protester to whom his crowd reacted violently, he might have deserved to be “roughed up.” He also said black Muslims cheered the 9/11 attacks and retweeted fake crime numbers that make it looks like black people are responsible for virtually all violent crime in the U.S.:
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"@SeanSean252: @WayneDupreeShow @Rockprincess818 @CheriJacobus pic.twitter.com/5GUwhhtvyN"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2015
My guess is the campaign is still busily inventing names. It takes awhile, trust me. It’s scarcely a surprise then that the largely white, racist Republican base loves them some Donald Trump. It’s a bit of a stretch to think he can find 100 black religious leaders to step up on stage with him.
You can bet he won’t go looking for the one black woman who, finding herself seated behind him, got busy with a book when she realized he had nothing to say to her “as a young adult, as a black woman.”
He shrugged off the crime lies by saying to Bill O’Reilly, “All it was is a retweet. It wasn’t from me, and it did — it came out of a radio show and other places.” Adding, after a little prodding, “This was a retweet, and it came from sources that weren’t very credible, what can I tell you.”
Did he then tweet some accurate crime numbers? No. No he did not. He let the lie stand to further warp the thinking of his supporters who need an excuse to hate the blacks he now says will support him. The white base doesn’t want to know that 82 percent of the white people murdered in 2014 were murdered not by black people, but by other white people.
That doesn’t sell in Trump country, where facts are as unwelcome as mosques.
An op-ed in Ebony Magazine from “more than 100 Black religious leaders and scholars” yesterday ask African American ministers to “think of Trump’s rhetoric before meeting with him.”
The religious leaders and scholars, who are named in the op-ed, argue that,
Trump’s racially inaccurate, insensitive and incendiary rhetoric should give those charged with the care of the spirits and souls of Black people great pause. As people of God, you are surely aware of the emotional, spiritual, and physical toll continued structural and state violence takes on Black people. Being continually reminded of reckless police disregard for Black life through the circulation of videos that show them murdering our young people, like 12-year old Tamir Rice, 7-year old Ayanna Stanley Jones, and 17-year old Laquan McDonald are both heartbreaking and stress-inducing.
Moreover as people of God, you know that our theology shapes our politics, and politics are a great indicator of our theology. What theology do you believe Mr. Trump possesses when his politics are so clearly anti-Black? He routinely engages in the kind of rhetoric that brings out the worst sorts of white racist aggression, not only toward Black people, but also toward Mexican-Americans and Muslim-Americans, too. Surely, we can agree that this kind of unloving and violent language does not reflect the politics of the Christ we profess?
Well, that’s easy to answer: Jesus said to turn the other cheek. Trump told them to get the black guy out of there. And then said it was right that they had roughed him up.
They ask,
“By siding with a presidential candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes Black people, what message are you sending to the world about the Black lives in and outside of your congregations? Which Black lives do you claim to be liberating.”
CNN has asked Trump for a comment; for once he has had nothing to say.
Donald Trump is a disgrace, and at this point, he must be running out of groups to offend. He has gone after nearly everybody but white males: women, Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, Asians, the disabled, you name it. He even went after Iowans and reporters.
What he doesn’t understand is that if he does manage to round up 100 African-American ministers to endorse him, the act is not so much an endorsement of Trump but a discrediting of those ministers as men of God. We’ve all seen Trump wave his Bible around and heard him talk about his little wine and his little crackers.
We haven’t seen any evidence that he is aware of anything said by Jesus of Nazareth. We have seen evidence in the past few days that Americans can get tired of Trump’s bottomless hatred, as he drops 12 points in the polls in less than a week.
The truth is, Trump likes black people like he likes Muslims, which is to say, not much at all. The question is, can he find 100 black religious leaders who are blind to the facts as he?
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
