'We see him': Columnist says Trump’s appeals to Black voters are 'insults'

09 March 2024

Former President Donald Trump is making a campaign stop today in Georgia — a swing state he narrowly lost in 2020 thanks to high Black voter turnout for Democrats. But in 2024, Trump aims to peel off Black voters in his third bid for the White House. One columnist is crying foul on what she views as a cynical effort by the ex-president to hoodwink her demographic.

In her latest column for Inforum — the website for the Fargo, North Dakota-based Forum newspaper — professor Joan Brickner took Trump to task for his entreaty to Black voters, given his past actions and statements. She pointed to a February event in South Carolina, in which he spoke to a "mostly white audience of the Black Conservative Foundation." She pointed out that the award the group gave him for being a "champion of Black America" was a "made-up prize," and that the award was negated by his record.

"This is a man sued for failing to rent to Black people," Brickner wrote. "This is a man who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times to promote executing the Central Park Five, Black and Latino men who had been convicted of raping a white woman – men later cleared, having nothing to do with it, after years of imprisonment. This is a man who has said neo-Nazis and KKK members in Charlottesville included 'fine people.'"

After the event Brickner referenced, Trump was widely panned for saying that his multiple criminal indictments and mugshots were the reason "the Black people like me." Brickner said "insults" like that statement — along with another statement by Trump supporter Raymond Arroyo that his branded sneakers would endear him to Black voters because "Blacks love sneakers" — weren't fooling Black voters paying attention to his support of racist and bigoted politicians.

"We see him endorse Mark Robinson, the Black Republican North Carolina nominee who describes the LGBTQ community as 'filth' and attacks women in leadership," wrote Brickner. "He wants to ban abortion with absolutely no exceptions and thinks we shouldn’t teach social studies. But, he also says Blacks should be paying reparations to whites for the Civil War, as whites fought for Blacks; ignoring the trauma of slavery, the roughly 180,000 Blacks who fought and 40,000 who died."

Brickner warned that Trump's racism was encouraging the worst elements of society, referencing white supremacist Darrell Leon McClanahan III's candidacy for the GOP's gubernatorial nomination in Missouri. She also reminded readers that Republicans today are attacking the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and that neo-Nazis were seen openly mingling with attendees at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference.

"The evil of hate – towards women, non-Christians, racial and ethnic minorities - still exists," she wrote. "Truth must come before reconciliation. Truth and reconciliation are vital for our nation, for our world."

Earlier this year, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk — one of Trump's leading supporters — aired a podcast episode on Martin Luther King day to besmirch the late civil rights leader's reputation, calling him "awful." And during TPUSA's "Americafest" event in late 2023, Kirk told the conference's approximately 20,000 attendees that the Civil Rights Act — which desegregated public facilities and led to widespread integration throughout society — was a "huge mistake."

"He's not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn't believe," Kirk said of King.

Kirk later complained that the Civil Rights Act instituted a "permanent [diversity, equity and inclusion]-type bureaucracy" and that it was merely done as "a way to get rid of the First Amendment." He also lamented that federal judges "just yield to the Civil Rights Act as if it's the actual American Constitution."

Click here to read Brickner's column in full (subscription required).

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