The American President: Donald Trump & The Societal Exposé, Part 3

As a tenth grader at School Without Walls Senior High School in Northwest D.C., my exceptionally brilliant humanities teacher steered us away from generic textbooks and encouraged us to consult primary source information first when it came to understanding social, political and historical events.  Her thinking was that general and secondary sources allowed for less detail and more cultural bias whereas primary source information was directly from the people with the experience(s) being researched.  Apparently, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump doesn't believe in that as he is a constant violator of former New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs coach Herman Edwards' "Don't Hit Send" warning.  Whether it's via social media or just opening his mouth, Trump says whatever he wants whenever he desires without any defendable form of mental preparedness, verification or fact checking until someone corrects him.  As problematic as this is for a presidential candidate, he is representative of an even larger dilemma in American society: taking information as presented from questionable sources to make an argument without enough supporting facts from more reliable sources.  Hence, in this third installment of "The American President: Donald Trump & The Societal Exposé", I will get into Trump potentially being the poster child of America's miseducation...

PART 3: AMERICA THE UNINFORMED

One of the most infamous instances during Donald Trump's presidential campaign was a November 22 tweet from his verified Twitter account citing the seemingly-nonexistent "Crime Statistics Bureau - San Francisco" to insinuate that Black people commit the most violent crimes.  The inaccurate statistics were that 81 percent of White homicides are committed by Blacks and 97 percent of Black homicides are committed by other Blacks.  However, the FBI's statistics from 2014 revealed that 82 percent of White homicides were committed by other Whites and only 15 percent were at the hands of Black people.  Furthermore, 90 percent of Black homicides are committed by other Blacks, which is only seven percent less than Trump's reposted meme but still inaccurate and falls in line with the fact most homicides are intraracial.  Perhaps more egregious in the photo is a man wearing bandanas on his head and over his face, a dark shirt and fatigue pants holding a gun sideways to somehow make the point.  If sticking his foot in his mouth about Black people and violent crimes wasn't bad enough, a CNN report connected to that same incident outlined how Trump made the following claim a day later regarding the 9/11 attacks: "There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations.  They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down."  However, despite the Jersey City Police Department and other sources have debunking Trump's claim, that didn't stop him from standing firm in his position and swearing up and down that he witnessed it with his own eyes.

Then there was Donald Trump's supposed ignorance regarding the Ku Klux Klan, who is only the most notoriously hateful and violent White supremacist group in American history.  In a February 25 Facebook post that was part exposé as he listed quite a few KKK members who have been senators and presidents, former grand wizard David Duke made what he called a "political recommendation" of Trump as "the best candidate of a really horrible lot of them".  Although Duke stressed that he doesn't agree with all of Trump's positions, his six-point argument for the type of leader that America needs included someone who will secure America's borders, break the power of "Jewish-controlled" Federal Reserve and "predator banks", break up "Jewish dominated" lobbies and super PACs, keep the U.S. from warring with Russia, ensure that Whites are able to "preserve and promote their heritage" like other racial and ethnic groups and expose the lies of the "controlled" media.  Three days later on CNN's State of the Union, Jake Tapper asked Trump about Duke's recommendation and Trump responded with this little number:

Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, okay?  I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with White supremacy or White supremacists.  So I don't know. I don't know--did he endorse me, or what's going on?  Because I know nothing about David Duke.  I know nothing about White supremacists and so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.

However, Trump disassociated himself from Duke, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and Marxist-Leninist advocate Lenora Fulani back in 2000 when he nearly ran a presidential campaign under the Reform Party.  In a statement to the New York Times, he said, "The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani.  This is not company I wish to keep."  Therefore, Trump knew about both David Duke and White supremacists enough to distance himself from them 16 years ago when he nearly ran for President, but he suddenly and conveniently needs a list of the groups so that he can properly disavow them.  Yeah, I know...he was just straight up lying, but the primary source information that he would've helped him not look like such a dunce were his own words that disavowed Duke and the KKK a long time ago.  Granted, there were reports that his staff gave press credentials to a known White supremacist and Trump's son granted an interview to that person, but regardless, the best damage control is being fully informed--especially when that information originally came from your own mouth.

Fret not for being loud and wrong isn't limited to Donald Trump; in fact, many of his most outspoken supporters show the same amount of shamelessness in being factually incorrect.  Enter Lynette "Diamond" Hardaway and Rochelle "Silk" Richardson aka the "Stump for Trump Girls", who rose to fame for their bombastic endorsement via a quasi-freestyle at a Raleigh, North Carolina rally that many Black folk would argue set us back at least 150 years.  At the rally, Hardaway screamed, "He gon' build that wall...and he gon' build it tall...and it's gon' protect us all!"  Unfortunately, Hardaway and Richardson, who were former supporters of President Barack Obama, ran into the buzzsaw that is NewsOne Now's Roland Martin, who routinely take his guests and callers to task about relying on the facts.  When Martin asked the women why they were supporting Trump, Hardaway spoke on their behalf:

We're supporting Donald Trump because, first, he wants to secure the borders, so that means he wants to keep America safe.  Then he wants to bring back opportunities where people are thriving again, he wants to bring our jobs back.  And he wants to bring back spirit.  That means he wants to bring back unity.  That means he wants to unite our country. That's why we're supporting Donald Trump.

Martin asked them about a specific plan to bring back jobs and Hardaway mentioned Trump's plan to renegotiate trade deals and lower corporate taxes, but he wondered how that could be accomplished when Congress has to approve that, the Republicans currently control the House and the Senate and that hasn't happened since they've maintained Congressional control.  Then he questioned Trump's ability to unify when he has criticized Mexicans and Muslims, wouldn't outright disavow David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan and has a history of misogynistic remarks, but the women tried to turn it into a media spin on Trump's words while he simply retorted, "No, that's what he said."  Midway through the interview, Hardaway challenged Martin by questioning the lack of criticism against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her support of a former Klansman--who also allegedly endorsed President Obama.  However, when he asked did that same former Klansman "repudiate his past", Hardaway answered, "I don't know what he did!"  On cue, Martin said, "If you're going to raise the point, have your facts together...Senator Robert Byrd absolutely did that.  David Duke continues to be a White supremacist.  David Duke continues to be a bigot."  As much as I could ramble about the blind support that Hardaway and Richardson manifested in this interview filled with rude interruptions and trying to talk over the interviewer, all that needs to be said is that the best hustler can sell water to a well and this is evidence that Donald Trump is advertising partial plans and half-truths to a very parched support base.

Unfortunately, that thirst has also permeated into the evangelical community as many Christians have either lent their support to or outright endorsed Trump, including Joel Osteen and Paula White.  The Christian Times Newspaper, who has been in the "news" business and spreading daily devotionals for over 25 years, posted an article about Robert King Bullock, a Black Trump supporter who was supposedly killed in the melee that ensued in the heated March 11 protests of an ultimately canceled Trump rally in Chicago.  CTN allegedly interviewed a man anonymously named "Terry", who submitted the following statement: 

Rob was a Black man, but he supported Trump because he got tired of Democrats saying his race was the thing holding him back...[Rob] lost his job because of Obamacare.  He lost his brother to Black-on-Black gang violence.  Now he lost his life because he believed in a White man.  His race didn't have a damn thing to do with what held him back.

However, neither the Chicago Police Department nor media outlets like FOX News that would've jumped at the chance to promote this story have corroborated this information.  In fact, not only have satirical outlets like Snopes been the only websites to promote this article, but more important, CTN has a disclaimer at the bottom of their own page that says "not all stories are necessarily grounded in fact" and that they do their "best to provide accurate, updated news and information".  They even went so far as to post a picture that was "allegedly" taken from the crime scene where two homeless men found Bullock's body after two gunshots to his abdomen.  

Forget the "facts" for a second though and let's bust down the legitimacy of "Terry's" quote.  So Bullock lost his job because of Obamacare?  Lost his brother to Black-on-Black gang violence?  Lost his life because he believed in a White man when there's a Jewish man running for the Democratic nomination, 43 out of the 44 presidents have been White men and five out of six in Bullock's lifetime were White men?  You mean to tell me that this man has never had to support a White man for President in his 37 years of life?  Stop playing with me, Smokey.  This is nothing more than Trump playing the ultimate ventriloquist and, much like the "Stump for Trump Girls", he has his hand deep into the posteriors of his "puppets", if I'm being nice about it.  Promoting a story like this is dangerously irresponsible for any "news" outlet, but it's even more ominous when the outlet has ambiguity as a credible news source going under a religious banner because there are a lot of naive readers and/or religious radicals who will more likely believe information coming from a "sacred" source than a "secular" one.  Hence, someone in their target audience would love nothing more than a story of this nature to be true--not because they want to see someone actually die, but because they want any form of proof that manifests how the "Dump Trump" crowd is more aggressive, disruptive and incendiary than even the most rogue Trump supporter.

As much as we can ridicule Donald Trump for sounding like a bumbling buffoon, is he or his publicized support base the only uninformed bunch in America?  It wasn't long ago when State Farm's hilarious "French model" commercial highlighted the naivety of the average web surfer when the woman says, "They can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true."  Sad part is that so many of us have believed and/or posted untrue information just because it was from the Internet.  How many times have people reposted those "Tupac Is Alive" articles, not even paying attention to the fact that a car insurance blog is the source?  How many people have excoriated Michael Jordan the basketball player for investing in the prison system when it was Michael Jordan, former Chief Operating Officer for the State of Oregon, whose name was connected to the firing of a prison industries chief for blowing the whistle regarding questionable hiring and spending practices at the Oregon State Department of Corrections?  (I'm still waiting for someone to show me concrete proof of that.)  During the current presidential election, people have been quick to criticize Hillary Clinton for her "super predator" remarks and jump straight to the conclusion that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was her baby.  However, although she lobbied for the bill, current Vice President Joe Biden actually wrote the bill as Senator of Delaware and Senator Bernie Sanders voted "Aye" as a representative for Vermont; of course, there hasn't been as much of an outcry regarding their support of the bills because many people are more trusting and supportive of them than Clinton, who has been consistently called out for her dishonesty.  Heck, there's a picture floating around of four White women at a Trump rally whose collective shirts were altered to say "Make America White Again" when their shirts actually formed to say "Make America Great Again".


In the era of quick information, people often believe what's presented in memes and don't take the time to double-check sources or read in-depth for themselves, often in desperate attempts to support their personal beliefs, assumptions and agendas.  If 2Pac has been the Elvis of your generation and you feel like he's the G.O.A.T., then it's understandable why you would think that he's actually alive and possibly hiding out in Cuba.  (No bull...the day that Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly was released, I heard this brother on the Z8 raving about "Mortal Man" and saying, "I don't care what nobody says...2Pac is alive!"  All I thought was, "I miss Pac, too, but let it go, brother...let it go.")  If you feel that Michael Jordan isn't vocal enough about the assaults and shootings over his exorbitantly-priced, highly-coveted sneakers; view him as a great basketball player who has engaged in douchebaggery in his personal life; or if you're still bitter about what he and the Bulls did to the Knicks in the 90s, then of course you'll trust some phantom article(s) about him investing in the private prison industry.  If you feel like the Clintons had something to do with one of your cousins spending way too much time in jail during the 90s for a nonviolent offense or took away their ability to be educated while incarcerated, then I can see how you would automatically assume that Hillary Clinton pretty much wrote the 1994 Crime Bill.  If you believe in your heart of hearts that Donald Trump should be nicknamed "Stone Cold Skeeve Austin" because he has shown himself to be grossly divisive, immature and debased enough to incite the worst element in America, then you wouldn't think that it was farfetched that four White women in his fanbase would be bold enough to wear a T-shirt collective saying "Make America White Again".  For once, I will quote someone other than Jay-Z as Mary J. Blige has a more analogous sentiment from her 1994 hit single, "Be Happy": "But when you think you're in love, you only see what you wanna see."  Whether you're in love, in hate or in indifference with someone or something, you'll take any piece of information to make your point--even if it's completely false.


I get it...we've been so used to receiving false information in America that it's commonplace to share, repost, quote and cite it just because it's at our disposal.  Growing up, textbooks made Christopher Columbus seem like his whole goal was to "discover" America or like his "discovery" was so great and unprecedented, totally skipping over the part that there were already people here centuries before he was even a twinkle in his parents' eyes or about all of the havoc that he wreaked against those who were already here.  Many of those same textbooks told us about this country's "founding fathers" and how they drafted the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution, all while omitting how many of them were brutal slaveowners who made it so that the law would only recognize Black people as 60 percent human.  Fast forward, the media often tells us when terrorist threat levels are at Code Orange or Red to get us all in some kind of a frenzy while the CIA has classified information that says the exact opposite.  The wool is constantly being pulled over our eyes, so instead of challenging what we hear or see, many of us succumb and accept.  Maybe because ignorance is bliss and information is powerful but can be simultaneously sorrowful.  Perhaps it's easier to have any bit of information versus none at all.  I'm not saying that we have to all be career conspiracy theorists with information, but when Donald Trump is front-running for the Republican party's nomination and he and his supporters are rattling off inaccuracies like Birdman from Cash Money rattles off his prized possessions in like 90 percent of his raps, we have to realize that he might be a man of the people more than we'd like him to be.  Maybe Trump and America at-large could stand to take a collective cue from a simple phrase entered into American popular lexicography by Stan Freberg's hit audio satire, "St. George and the Dragonet," and not by the hit TV show, Dragnet (which, by the way, never used the phrase in any episode contrary to popular belief): "Just the facts, ma'am."

Please come back and read next week's final installment of "The American President: Donald Trump & The Societal Exposé" titled "Part 4: America the Ostentatious".  If you need to catch up on the Parts 1 & 2, then click here and here, respectively.