This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/opinion/sunday/n-word-tape-trump-racism-omarosa.html
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Why Do You Need the N-word Tape? | Why Do You Need the N-word Tape? |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, admitted this week that she “can’t guarantee” that Americans won’t hear a recording of the president of the United States using a vile racial slur. | |
| It doesn’t make a difference to me whether the supposed tape — which the former White House aide and reality show contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman says she’s heard — exists, and I’m not alone in that view. | It doesn’t make a difference to me whether the supposed tape — which the former White House aide and reality show contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman says she’s heard — exists, and I’m not alone in that view. |
| The collective shrug over the rumored recording from some of black America is telling. After all, the so-called N-word is widely considered one of the most hateful in the English language. Whether it comes from the lips of a public figure or a vicious everyday American caught in a supermarket conflict that goes viral, it is often seen as truly revealing — a first piece of data about a person’s animosity toward or total disregard for the experience of black people. | The collective shrug over the rumored recording from some of black America is telling. After all, the so-called N-word is widely considered one of the most hateful in the English language. Whether it comes from the lips of a public figure or a vicious everyday American caught in a supermarket conflict that goes viral, it is often seen as truly revealing — a first piece of data about a person’s animosity toward or total disregard for the experience of black people. |
| But Mr. Trump is a special case. If he did use the slur, it won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. | But Mr. Trump is a special case. If he did use the slur, it won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. |
| What’s disturbing is the way the possibility of a tape has been held up — through a week packed with breaking news chyrons and cable news panels somberly weighing in on its potential impact — as a potential game changer when it comes to the national consensus about Mr. Trump’s racism. This intense attention to the story seems to reflect the misguided belief that the ultimate, objective proof of racism is a person’s use of a slur. The popularity of that belief is a reminder that a facet of white supremacy is not only to decide what race is but also what racism is — and when it does or does not exist. | What’s disturbing is the way the possibility of a tape has been held up — through a week packed with breaking news chyrons and cable news panels somberly weighing in on its potential impact — as a potential game changer when it comes to the national consensus about Mr. Trump’s racism. This intense attention to the story seems to reflect the misguided belief that the ultimate, objective proof of racism is a person’s use of a slur. The popularity of that belief is a reminder that a facet of white supremacy is not only to decide what race is but also what racism is — and when it does or does not exist. |
| I worry about those who seem to believe Mr. Trump is not really racist without the tape — and, perhaps, that the nation is not racist without Mr. Trump. I worry that people want to believe this. | I worry about those who seem to believe Mr. Trump is not really racist without the tape — and, perhaps, that the nation is not racist without Mr. Trump. I worry that people want to believe this. |
| To think of a racial slur as the ultimate in racism is naïve at best. As President Barack Obama said of racism in 2015: “We are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.” Racism’s harm comes less from single words and individual expressions of animosity than it does from systemic realities — such as how one in nine black children have a parent in prison compared with one in 57 white children. | To think of a racial slur as the ultimate in racism is naïve at best. As President Barack Obama said of racism in 2015: “We are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.” Racism’s harm comes less from single words and individual expressions of animosity than it does from systemic realities — such as how one in nine black children have a parent in prison compared with one in 57 white children. |
| Its harm comes from the actions of people like Mr. Trump, who when he was a landlord was sued by the Department of Justice for anti-black housing discrimination. Who in the 1980s took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the execution of “muggers and murderers” — a reference to the Central Park Five. Who still insisted, in 2016, that those black and Latino men were guilty despite DNA evidence that exonerated them. Who falsely suggested that the first African-American president was born in Kenya and demanded that he produce his birth certificate. | Its harm comes from the actions of people like Mr. Trump, who when he was a landlord was sued by the Department of Justice for anti-black housing discrimination. Who in the 1980s took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the execution of “muggers and murderers” — a reference to the Central Park Five. Who still insisted, in 2016, that those black and Latino men were guilty despite DNA evidence that exonerated them. Who falsely suggested that the first African-American president was born in Kenya and demanded that he produce his birth certificate. |
| Mr. Trump has tweeted, “I don’t have that word in my vocabulary.” There is little reason to believe that statement, because he is a well-documented liar. But even if this is true, it does nothing to erase the many ways he’s expressed his racism — and in particular, his anti-blackness. Calling majority-black nations “shithole countries.” Spreading the lie that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes (they’re not) and that Mexicans are rapists (on tape!). Wishing for more Norwegian immigrants, and railing against how immigration is “changing the culture” of Europe. | |
| He insisted there were “some very fine people” among the white supremacists who marched alongside Heather Hyer’s killer, and has encouraged the police — who disparately harm people of color — to be “rough” with mere suspects. He reportedly complained about Haitians, saying “they’ve all got AIDS” — and announced the end of a humanitarian program that gave 59,000 of them temporary protected status. At a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that one in two black queer men in the United States will become H.I.V. positive, Mr. Trump shuttered the longstanding presidential AIDS policy office and advisory board. | |
| He called the CNN journalist Don Lemon and the basketball star LeBron James “dumb.” He dismissed Ms. Manigault Newman as a “dog,” and called Representative Maxine Waters a “low IQ person.” The Guardian analyzed the Trump Twitter Archive website and noted, “Whereas the likes of James Comey, John McCain and Mitt Romney receive a smorgasbord of other insults, the congresswoman Maxine Waters and TV host Don Lemon, both of whom are African-American, appear to be denigrated for their intelligence alone.” | |
| With all this in mind, black people and others who take racism seriously — who know it is a force that shapes our society, rather than simply an insulting label that must be cautiously applied — don’t need to hear a tape to know where he stands. And I am not sure such a tape would make much difference to anyone else, even those who cling to the laughable myth that the use of a slur is the gold standard when it comes to identifying racism. Despite his decades-long record of well-publicized racist behavior, in 2016, 58 percent of non-Hispanic white voters cast ballots for Mr. Trump. The week before last, a CBS News poll found 83 percent of Republicans approve of his handling of racial issues. | With all this in mind, black people and others who take racism seriously — who know it is a force that shapes our society, rather than simply an insulting label that must be cautiously applied — don’t need to hear a tape to know where he stands. And I am not sure such a tape would make much difference to anyone else, even those who cling to the laughable myth that the use of a slur is the gold standard when it comes to identifying racism. Despite his decades-long record of well-publicized racist behavior, in 2016, 58 percent of non-Hispanic white voters cast ballots for Mr. Trump. The week before last, a CBS News poll found 83 percent of Republicans approve of his handling of racial issues. |
| Trump isn’t the first politician to harbor and promote racism. Presidents Truman and Nixon actually used the N-word — the former writing to his future wife, “I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman,” while the latter was recorded telling Henry Kissinger “Let’s leaves the niggers to Bill” — Secretary of State William Rogers — “and we’ll take care of the rest of the world.” | Trump isn’t the first politician to harbor and promote racism. Presidents Truman and Nixon actually used the N-word — the former writing to his future wife, “I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman,” while the latter was recorded telling Henry Kissinger “Let’s leaves the niggers to Bill” — Secretary of State William Rogers — “and we’ll take care of the rest of the world.” |
| Others, like George Washington, made their stance clear with their actions. He engaged a slave catcher for years to try to track down Ona Judge, an enslaved woman who successfully fled Mount Vernon’s bondage. | Others, like George Washington, made their stance clear with their actions. He engaged a slave catcher for years to try to track down Ona Judge, an enslaved woman who successfully fled Mount Vernon’s bondage. |
| Thomas Jefferson may as well have screamed the slur when he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that “The blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind” and “in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” And, when the “great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln himself, met with a group of black leaders in 1862 and wanted to expel all black people to South America — because, “But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other,” he didn’t need a hateful word to get his point across. | Thomas Jefferson may as well have screamed the slur when he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that “The blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind” and “in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” And, when the “great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln himself, met with a group of black leaders in 1862 and wanted to expel all black people to South America — because, “But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other,” he didn’t need a hateful word to get his point across. |
| When it comes to the supposed tape, I’m reminded of what James Baldwin said in 1963: “What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a ‘nigger’ in the first place, because I’m not a nigger. I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need it.” | When it comes to the supposed tape, I’m reminded of what James Baldwin said in 1963: “What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a ‘nigger’ in the first place, because I’m not a nigger. I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need it.” |
| Today, those who think they must hear a recording before making a judgment about Mr. Trump should engage in a similar kind of reflection: Why is it necessary? And what does it mean that you need it? | Today, those who think they must hear a recording before making a judgment about Mr. Trump should engage in a similar kind of reflection: Why is it necessary? And what does it mean that you need it? |
| Steven W. Thrasher is a doctoral candidate in American studies at New York University, where he researches the criminalization of H.I.V. and is writing a book about race and reporting. | Steven W. Thrasher is a doctoral candidate in American studies at New York University, where he researches the criminalization of H.I.V. and is writing a book about race and reporting. |
| Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. | Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. |