'Birther-in-Chief': Congressman Slams Trump's Extensive Racist History Ahead of a Hateful New 'White Civil Rights' March

Matthew Chapman
and
AlterNet
10 August 2018

One year out from the tragic, deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the white nationalists behind the "Unite the Right Rally" are on the move again. This time, alt-right organizer Jason Kessler plans to stage a "White Civil Rights Rally" in Washington D.C., beginning at Foggy Bottom subway station and culminating in a demonstration in Lafayette Square Park, directly across from the White House.

But moving the clashes closer to Trump's residence will not necessarily make him more likely to condemn them. In fact, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made clear on CNN, when asked if Trump should address the nation on the demonstrations, that he doesn't trust Trump to show leadership at all.

"We should absolutely hear from the President of the United States of America," said Jeffries, "but I have no expectation that we will hear from someone who is appropriately characterized as the Birther-In-Chief, someone who has never hesitated to fan the flames of racial hatred in order to advance his own personal, political, or professional ends."

"This goes all the way back to the 1970s when the Trump Organization was sued by the Nixon Justice Department for racially discriminating against Black and Latino housing applicants," he went on. "And then of course in the late 1980s, it was Donald Trump who led the lynch mob against the Central Park Five — individuals, Black and Latino, who were wrongfully charged, wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned, for a crime that they did not commit — and Donald Trump continues to double down and triple down on that malicious prosecution. And then of course, the five years perpetrating the racist lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States of America. And then it continued into his administration, particularly as it relates to the horrendous response to what took place in Charlottesville."

After neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville last August, Trump claimed that there were "very fine people" marching among them and drew a false equivalence between their violent, racist assaults and the counterprotests against them.

It remains to be seen whether his response to the imminent white nationalist demonstrations in his own backyard will be any different. But Jeffries clearly does not think it will be.