The video posted on Donald Trump’s social media, depicting former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as apes, was truly disgusting – no matter whose fingers were behind it.
Donald Trump has claims the racist video posted on his social media, showing former president Barack Obama and his wife Michele as apes, was done in error by a member of staff. But whatever the truth, even the most cursory Google search unearths the many racially offensive things Trump is on record as saying.
Last week’s outrage was the main course. For dessert, Trump attacked Bad Bunny’s performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl, describing singing in Spanish as “an affront to the Greatness of America”, adding: “nobody understands a word this guy is saying”.
In case you’re asking how we got here… Trump showed us exactly who he was during his first presidency, with his Muslim travel ban and description of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. He told us exactly who he would be this time around when he claimed undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”.
Also when he made clear he’d “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Yet he was given a mandate to be exactly that same person by 77 million voters.
We got here because, with a few notable exceptions, our mainstream news media – on both sides of the Atlantic – has ignored or downplayed his shocking, racist language.
Here’s an example. There should have been an outcry over Trump saying in December he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the US. He insisted they should “go back to where they came from” and complained that the US keeps taking “garbage into our country”.
It barely registered on the political Richter scale in the UK. Everyone shrugged their shoulders and moved on. That’s how we got here. Our society has normalised hate. Most UK media has already moved on from that Trump clip.
We got here because we give credence to the apologists under the guise of balance. Some even claim the racist video wasn’t intentionally shared. Yep, maybe he just intended to like it instead.
We got here because some of the news media outlets supposedly appalled by that Trump clip are the same news media outlets falling over themselves to give airtime to the UK’s far right – to pretty much say the same things using more polite language. We have ocean breeze racism over here compared to the deep fried racism over there.
In relation to this summer’s US World Cup – we got here because too many people were sucked in by the delusion that sport and politics don’t mix. Believe that and you’ll believe anything. We are all products of our environments, all of which are affected by government policy. Sportsmen and women don’t disappear into another dimension when they pull on a shirt and a pair of boots.
Most people who believe sport and politics don’t mix are not affected by the racism, sexism, police brutality and social injustice superstars like LeBron James, Megan Rapinoe, Colin Kaepernick, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling, Carmelo Anthony, right back to Muhammad Ali, have faced and stood up to.
It matters because when the US President can, apparently, repost something so nakedly racist towards two of the highest profile Black people on the planet, then anyone is fair game.
It matters because when you show racism to one Black person, you show it to all Black people. It matters because that portrayal of the Obamas as apes will inspire more attacks on people of colour on buses, in supermarkets, on social media feeds. It matters because this issue isn’t confined to the other side of the Atlantic.
