Trump and Black History
By Allyson Hobbs
February 22, 2017
... Earlier this month, in a tweet about the importance of education, the Department of Education misspelled the last name of the civil-rights activist and N.A.A.C.P. co-founder W. E. B. Du Bois .... Last week, during a rambling and combative press conference, President Trump appeared to be unfamiliar with the Congressional Black Caucus ... Meanwhile, it turned out that the C.B.C. had already contacted Trump, in January — and was still waiting for a response.
Then there were Trump’s bizarre comments about Frederick Douglass ... prompting immediate speculation about whether the President believed that Douglass, who died in 1895, was in fact still alive. How could this be? Douglass’s autobiography is assigned in high schools and college classrooms across the country ...
... If Trump doesn’t know this history, how can he understand, or claim to understand, African-American life and race relations in this country?
During the campaign, Trump bragged that he would “do great with the African-Americans.” But his use of the very term “the African-Americans” betrayed a lack of appreciation for the diversity of interests within African-American communities. Trump has painted African-American life with a broad and despairing brush ... He mischaracterized the district represented by John Lewis, the civil-rights icon and congressman, as “falling apart (not to mention crime-infested)” and “in horrible shape,” despite the reality that much of the district, which covers parts of Atlanta and its suburbs, is a thriving educational and tech hub ...
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-black-history-month