Ignoring Trump's Record of Racism

Fair and Accurary in Reporting (FAIR0
May 6, 2011

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4285

Donald Trump's efforts to delegitimize Barack Obama by
suggesting he's not a native-born citizen, and
questioning his qualifications for admissions to
Columbia University and Harvard Law School, have drawn
fire from prominent media figures like MSNBC host
Lawrence O'Donnell (FAIR Blog, 4/29/11), CBS News
anchor Bob Schieffer (CBS Evening News, 4/27/11) and
even David Letterman (Late Show, 4/28/11), who have
pointed out the racism implicit in Trump's smears.

But few corporate journalists have so far put Trump's
anti-Obama efforts in the context of earlier racist
episodes in the real estate developer's career--a
history that sheds light on the potential presidential
candidate's recent hamfisted claim: "I have a great
relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great
relationship with the blacks." (As Washington Post
columnist Eugene Robinson--4/19/11--observed regarding
Trump's awkward boast: "Yes, he said 'the blacks.'
Twice.")

Salon's Justin Elliot (4/28/11) traced Trump's racism
back to the 1970s, when the Justice Department
repeatedly alleged racial discrimination by Trump
Management Company, where Trump served as president.
According to a New York Times report (10/16/73) about
the federal case:

The government contended that Trump Management had
refused to rent or negotiate rentals "because of race
and color." It also charged that the company had
required different rental terms and conditions because
of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that
apartments were not available.

After Trump agreed in a 1975 deal to integrate Trump
properties, in 1978 the Justice Department charged
Trump Management with failing to live up to the
agreement. As Elliott reports, "in 1983, a fair-housing
activist cited statistics that two Trump Village
developments had white majorities of at least 95
percent." (See New York Times, 10/16/83.)

In his 1991 book Trumped!, the former president of
Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, John R. O'Donnell, recalled
Trump declaring that "laziness is a trait in blacks,"
and exclaiming: "Black guys counting my money! I hate
it. The only kind of people I want counting my money
are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day."
Trump acknowledged in a Playboy interview (5/97; cited
Huffington Post, 4/29/11), "The stuff O'Donnell wrote
about me is probably true."

Trump injected himself into a racial controversy in
1989 when, after a white female jogger was raped in
Central Park, he took out full-page newspaper ads
calling for the executions of the five people
arrested--all minors aged 14 to 16 years old, four of
them African-American and one Latino. All five were
later exonerated after being convicted on the basis of
what turned out to be false confessions, the crime
actually having been committed by a lone serial rapist
(New York Times, 12/8/02).

Trump has never taken out similar ads in regard to
other prominent and even more serious crimes, including
serial murders, in the New York area, and failed to
apologize following the exonerations. The story
recently received local coverage on New York City cable
news station NY1 (4/28/11) when one of the people
targeted in the Trump ads asked the presidential
hopeful for an apology--but national media have avoided
the story.

When Barack Obama held a press conference (4/27/11)
announcing he would release additional evidence to
document his already-established U.S. birth, the
spectacle recalled the days of Jim Crow, when black
citizens were required to produce extra documentation,
pay poll taxes and take "literacy tests" in a system
designed to disenfranchise them. Trump followed in
these footsteps by demanding that Obama provide
evidence never required of any white politician--a
parallel heightened when, during a press conference
boasting of his role in forcing Obama to release a new
version of his birth certificate, he made a new bid to
delegitimize Obama by demanding that he release his
school records as well.

The failure to cover Trump's record of racism is
troubling, but perhaps not surprising given the evident
glee with which corporate media have greeted his
potential candidacy. Trump attended the April 20 White
House Correspondents Dinner as a guest of the
Washington Post, about which the Post's Dan Zak
(4/20/11) reported, "Trump elicited boos from gawkers
and protesters while entering the Washington Hilton,
but once inside it was all flashbulbs and glad-handing
and laughs."

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