Charles Blow: Donald Trump Really Has It in for Women of Color
Donald Trump hates black women. Sure, he treats all women and minorities with breathtaking disrespect, but when any member of both groups has the gall to point out his moral failures, our president unleashes the full fury of his base. This was apparent following his botched condolence call to the gold star widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger.
As Charles Blow writes in his Monday column, this behavior is a "way of playing out his personal sense of racial, sexist, and patriarchal entitlement. And as he degrades, he plays to those very same entitlements in the base that elected him."
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) is a friend of the Johnson family and was in the car when the president called wife La David's wife, Myeisha. She also happens to be a black woman who correctly reported the contents of their conversation, in which Trump claimed Johnson "knew what he signed up for" and reportedly failed to remember his name. Trump has since responded as only he can—by defaming Wilson.
Blow writes, he "sent its chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, out to defend the president. He, too, lied about Wilson. When asked about Kelly’s lies, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it was 'highly inappropriate' to question a four-star general."
Sure, this sounds like the actions of a third-rate military dictatorship, but consider who is involved. In Trumpworld, "Military generals are a fraternity comprised almost exclusively of white men, according to a government report from 2011. How dare their word be questioned?"
When sending military generals out to lie for him isn't enough, Trump and his entire family have a habit of attacking black women's physical appearance, or suggesting Democrats are pulling their strings. Donald Trump Jr, Blow reminds us, said Congresswoman Maxine Waters looked "like a stripper," while Trump himself has tweeted that the the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, was instructed she "must be nasty to Trump."
What's worse, Trump's loyal fans love him for all this. "None of this is out of step with what his base wants," writes Blow. "Trump is advancing an agenda of white male identity politics and for those in his camp and in his corner, this is the dawn of a blissful new day."
With supporters who will never hold him accountable for his lies, Trump will continue to act out, staking progressively more racist and misogynistic positions. Blow leaves us with this scary reminder: "Donald Trump’s boogeymen are very often boogeywomen, and they are particularly primed for attack if they are black or brown."
Read the entire column here.
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