There were moments in President Trump’s Fourth of July speech that were eloquent, expressing patriotic sentiments that that could have been uttered by any previous president. But sadly, the speech also contained some of the harshest and most divisive partisan rhetoric delivered by any president in American history.
In a discordant speech overflowing with anger and spewing hatred, Trump conflated the peaceful protests for social justice and racial equality that have swept our nation in recent weeks with the rare instances of violence in some cities – as if they were one and the same.
And the president attributed these protests – which were actually about “liberty and justice for all” – to his political adversaries. He even went so far as to claim that courageous protesters of all races demonstrating against racism and inequality had been brainwashed.
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“The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination,” Trump claimed.
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But the facts, gathered from police departments across the nation, do not support the president’s bellicose claims. Indeed, The Associated Press reported that, as of early June, law enforcement had arrested only 10,000 people out of an estimated 26 million protesters.
Yet, Trump acted as if this tiny fraction of alleged lawbreakers were the modern-day equivalent of the hordes of barbarians breaching the bastions of Rome.
In fact, the protests against police brutality were inspired by the Memorial Day murder by a Minneapolis police officer of George Floyd, a handcuffed Black man not resisting arrest.
These protests were the largest in the history of our nation. And they were overwhelmingly lawful, peaceful, petitions for a redress of grievous and historic injustice.
Trump’s slander was vicious and unfair.
After Trump politicized these peaceful protests that had literally swept the globe, he brutally attacked NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace on Twitter. Wallace, it should be noted, is the only African American NASCAR full-time driver.
As background, NASCAR officials had shown Wallace a photo of a noose found in his garage stall at the Talladega Speedway on June 21 – the only one in 1,684 stalls at 29 inspected NASCAR tracks – and informed Wallace that it was a “hate crime.”
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Wallace simply repeated what he was told by NASCAR officials. For this, Trump charged Wallace with perpetrating “a hoax” – Trump’s favorite term, along with “fake news,” for any facts that cast him in a negative light.
Trump’s baseless attack against Wallace was another gut punch by the president to the people’s lawful right to protest. No citizen, not even the most successful African American driver in NASCAR history, can match a president’s “bully pulpit.”
Trump’s slander was vicious and unfair. But sadly, there are people who will believe the president’s attacks until the day they pass.
Even before his false tweet attacking Wallace, Trump continued his campaign to discredit the protesters and the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement was inspired, in part, by the murders of unarmed Black men and women by the police, as well as by ongoing systemic racism in our country.
Specifically, Trump called Black Lives Matter, which is among the many groups involved in the protests “a symbol of hate.”
When I hear the words “Black Lives Matter,” it speaks to something deep inside of me. After all, I am a proud descendant of ancestors sold into slavery. My ancestors were beaten and tortured in this country, and, never to be forgotten, they were denied the freedoms they fought for as patriotic soldiers in two world wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, I have witnessed something magical in the throes of pain caused by seeing another unarmed Black person murdered by the police. I have witnessed millions of peaceful protesters lined up across the country and in Washington across the street from the White House.
The incredibly diverse mix of protesters – including countless White friends who now desire to be allies in our long struggle for equal justice under the law – has given me great hope.
Many of our friends, including thoughtful leaders of American industry, are now asking us to speak to their corporate boards and their staffs, and to advise them on important corporate campaigns against racism.
Posting signs on their lawns in support of the protesters and Black Lives Matter, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with these words, and covering their mouths and noses with masks that pay homage to these movements for racial equality provides support for our seemingly endless struggle.
Sadly, the president of the United States doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand, or perhaps doesn’t care enough, to acknowledge that we don’t want the hurt that comes from his demonizing those who are risking their lives during a global pandemic to take to the streets and raise their voices for a safer and more just future for all Americans.
It’s time for President Trump to turn the page and abandon his old playbook of division for a new playbook of unity. If he chooses the road to goodness over the road to perdition, he can look to an unlikely source for inspiration.
There once was a racist Democratic governor of Alabama named George Wallace, who, over three decades from 1963 to 1987, led with conflict over healing. In his inaugural address in 1963, he uttered the hate-filled line: “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”
In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King called Wallace “perhaps the most dangerous racist in America today.”
After Wallace was shot and paralyzed from the waist down in 1972, he was visited by Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y., the first African American woman elected to Congress, who was also running for the Democratic presidential nomination that year against Wallace and other candidates.
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Chisholm repeatedly visited Wallace in the hospital and comforted him. It took years following Chisholm’s genuine caring for Wallace, but he finally repented his racist rhetoric and embraced equality and unity.
Millions of us have been wounded by our fellow Americans in this, our common home. Millions of us have wept and been stung by President Trump’s mean, false, angry and divisive attacks, and by his online bullying.
As Shirley Chisholm did with George Wallace, we have tried to genuinely forgive Trump’s divisive rhetoric, in the hope that he too will repent and embrace unity over division.
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Nelson Mandela, who led the battle to overturn the racist apartheid regime in South Africa and became the first Black president of that country, said: “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.”
Those are also the roads that lead to Making America Great Again.
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