During his campaign for president, Donald Trump has shown himself to be a racist

Before I begin responding to Con’s argument, I would like to make it clear that the Burden of Proof rests on Pro, as Pro is making the claim (Donald Trump is racist). This means, that it is Pro’s responsibility to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Trump has shown himself to be racist, in his campaign for president. If Pro fails to do so, I win the debate.Let’s also review the resolution. It is: “During his campaign for president, Donald Trump has shown himself to be a racist.” Also, in the first round, I indicated that “only statements said or actions done, since he started running for president, can be considered for the debate.” Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign on June 16th, 2015. (1) However, two of Pro’s arguments came from actions by Trump before that date. One of them, was Trump stating that laziness is a traits in blacks. However, as Pro admitted, it is unknown whether Trump actually said that and Trump was first accused of saying that in 1991. (2) This argument can thus immediately be thrown out, as it is purely speculation (Pro has to prove Trump said it for it be considered valid) and it did not happen while Trump was campaigning for president. The other example Pro provided was Trump tweeting about the Baltimore riots. However, that was tweeted on April 27th, 2015, almost two months before Trump began campaigning for president. (3) Therefore, there is no need for me to respond to the argument for that quote.Pro is now left with only one example to prove his point, the tweet about black murder rates. I agree with Pro that the tweeted murder rates were inaccurate. However, I will argue that the tweet does not prove that Trump is racist. Pro makes a few assumptions, which are not necessarily true. For one, Pro indicates that if Trump knew the stats were false, that prove he is a racist. However, it could very well be for another reason. Trump’s goal is the presidency. This could very well be a ploy for attention in an attempt to attract attention, a calculated move. It’s pretty well known that part of Trump’s strategy has been to increase his publicity. Thus, we cannot make assumptions about Trump’s motives.Also, Trump himself followed up on this tweet stating “I didn't tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert.” He follows this up by stating “Am I going to check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people @realdonaldtrump.” (4) So, according to Trump, he thought he was tweeting accurate statistics from an expert. Of course, this could be a lie, but there is no proof either way. However, if he is telling the truth, then there are many reasons he could tweet a statistic like that. It could be to show the evident problems in the African American community, showing that it needs to be addressed. Or it could simply be to spread awareness, seeing as a statistic (that Trump supposedly assumed was legitimate) has no agenda either way.Now, the substance of Pro’s argument was the picture of a stereotypical black thug proves Trump shared this with racist intent. However, once again Pro is relying on an assumption. It clearly is a picture of a stereotypical black thug, but the inclusion in the picture does not prove Trump is racist. For one, Trump retweeting the photo could have simply been to show the statistic, the graphic did not even cross his mind. Pro claims that the message supported by the picture is that “black people are generally criminals, and barbarians/thugs.” Again, this is an assumption. It could simply be showing the types of blacks to commit murders like that, thugs. It does absolutely nothing to discredit the black population as a whole, only the ones part of the subculture which commits crime.Overall, Pro has provided nothing to show that Trump is undoubtedly racist. He jumped to conclusions by making assumptions and provided no solid evidence that could prove beyond doubt that Trump was racist. Thus, he has objectively failed in his burden of proof.Sources:1-http://abcnews.go.com...2-http://www.washingtonexaminer.com...3-https://twitter.com...4-http://thehill.com...