Donald Trump is a Racist

There is a long lists of statements and actions made by Trump that reveal his racist attitudes. Trump doesn't come out and make overtly racist comments, but if you read between the lines, pay attention to his tone, and try to understand what he is implying, his racism becomes apparent. Some of his statements can be dismissed individually, but if we examine all of the evidence it shows a clear pattern of racial bias that runs through his campaign and his life. For this debate I define racism as holding negative attitudes or discriminating against people of a particular skin color, ethnic background, or religious identity. Religious identity is the controversial part of this definition and I will return to this when I discuss Trumps attitude towards Muslims. Starting back in 1973, Trump was sued by the Justice Department for alleged discrimination against blacks in his housing complexes (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com...). Two "testers", a white woman and a black women who worked for the government, were sent to a Trump apartment complex around the same time to apply for an apartment. While the black woman was told there was no space, the white woman was offered an apartment. During the government investigation, Trump employees told investigators that they placed a "C" for "colored" on applications filled out by African Americans. Eventually, Trump lost the suit but didn't admit guilt. He argued that he was not discriminating against African Americans, but rather against welfare recipients who couldn't afford to pay. However, the investigation clearly showed this was false. Trump eventually faced a second law suit for not complying with the terms of his first. It's true that Trump never openly discriminated against blacks with something like a "whites only" sign, but the evidence for discrimination against blacks is still there. While Trump may be racist, he's also a businessman and he knows that any outwards appearance of racism would hurt his success. Before his presidential campaign, Donald Trump led a campaign to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate. However, Obama already released his short-form certificate which was all that was expected of any other candidate. This drives the major question, what was the purpose of Trump's birth certificate campaign? The idea that Obama's birth certificate was faked was based on the idea that Obama was not born in America, which I argue is fueled by xenophobia and racism. Obama is different from other candidates in that he's black, has family and friends abroad, and has relationships with Muslims. None of this should bother anyone who isn't xenophobic, but those who are use this to portray Obama as non-American. Trump has both questioned Obama's birthplace, and suggested that he is a secret Muslim. While I can't prove definitively that the birther movement is motivated by racism, I can say racism seems to be the most plausible explanation for its existence. During Trump's presidential campaign, his racial controversies have radiated around two groups, Hispanics and Muslims. Trump made his most controversial comment about Hispanics during the speech that announced his candidacy. It is true that Donald Trump was talking about illegal immigrants from Mexico, and not Mexican immigrants in general. However, I argue that while support for a border wall or deportation is not necessarily racist, Trump's anti-immigration campaign is. To begin with, immigrating illegally is a fairly minor crime; it either means that one crossed an arbitrary line in the sand without the correct paperwork or that one entered legally but overstayed their visa. Immigrating illegally is more comparable to underage drinking or parking in a no parking zone than it is to drug trafficking and rape. Because of this, it raises a red flag when someone is excessively passionate about stopping illegal immigrants. During Trump’s opening speech, he associates illegal immigrants with serious crime without citing statistics. This association would appear to be based entirely off of stereotypes of Mexicans. Trump tried to soften his message by saying that some illegal immigrants (he assumes) are good people, but his emphasis is still clearly on the criminals. At other times, Trump has said that he wants Mexicans to come here, but legally. The problem with this is that the immigration laws we have in place are designed to restrict the number of immigrants who can come here legally. Donald has done nothing to challenge these laws. Trump’s true preference seems to be that these immigrants don’t come at all, legally or illegally. Perhaps the strongest evidence for Trump’s racism against Hispanics was his argument that Judge Gonzalo Curiel was unfit to oversee the Trump University case because of his Hispanic heritage. To say that anyone’s heritage disqualifies them from anything is inherently racist. However, the interesting part about this is that it shows that Trump understands why Hispanics perceive him as racist. In an attempt to defend himself, he argued that his plans to build a wall and to renegotiate trade deals with Mexico have made Hispanics biased against him (http://www.cnn.com... ). If these policies were not motivated by racism then there should be no reason to assume that Hispanics would automatically be against them. It’s therefore very telling that Trump himself believes that these policies cause Hispanics to hate him. Lastly, we get to Muslims. Even though Islam is a religion, not a race, I classify Islamophobia as a form of racism, equivalent to antisemitism. It is acceptable to criticize beliefs or practices associated with a religion, but it is not okay to discriminate against someone simply for the religion they identify with. The majority of Muslims are good everyday people who do not heed the worst parts of their religion. Keep in mind that most Muslims were born into their religion and didn’t subscribe to an ideology. An attack on all Muslims is there for an attack on their identity, not their beliefs. Trump has supported discrimination and profiling of Muslims in several ways: he supported a database of all Muslims (http://www.politifact.com... ), he suggested that Muslims should have to carry around special ID’s (https://www.theguardian.com... ), he advocated strongly for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, and he openly advocated for profiling Muslims (https://www.washingtonpost.com... ). Donald Trump doesn’t talk very much about the effectiveness of these policies as a counter-terrorism strategy; most likely they wouldn’t work since one can simply lie about their religion. Therefore, these policies are probably motivated by racism, not security concerns. Also, while stereotypes can contain shreds of truth, profiling inherently leads to discrimination against innocent people. We’ve learned during the civil rights movement how severely discrimination affects lives. Trump openly supports taking away rights from Muslims, which in my opinion makes him racist. In addition, it’s noteworthy that Muslims are not the only demographic associated with terrorism; Trump could also go after all young males, but he doesn’t. As I have said earlier, many of Trump’s statements and policies are not overtly racist and can be shrugged away. However, it’s not just liberals who interpret him as a racist, it’s also his most extreme supporters. There’s a clear reason why the KKK strongly supports Trump (they interpret his policies as racist, which they believe is a good thing) and Trump has not made a serious effort to distance himself from them. Trump also inspired the overtly racist campaign slogan for Rick Tyler, “Make America White Again” (http://www.nbcnews.com... ). This doesn’t prove that Trump is racist, but it does show that allegations of racism are not simply the result of a liberal smear campaign; Trump’s strongest supporters are interpreting Trump’s message the same way that liberals are. If Donald is being misinterpreted, he’s not doing a good job setting the record straight. Trump has a long pattern of saying and doing racist things. The reason he is not overtly racist is because he doesn’t want to say anything incriminating, as that would hurt both his business and his presidential campaign. That being said, Trump’s biased attitudes towards certain groups are apparent to both his supporters and his opponents. I conclude that Trump is a racist, and I look forward to the rest of this debate.