Breaking News: Trump Alleges Black Woman Turns Black!

(Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris: Credit via Biden for President)

Dear readers, as you already know I am a simple, unfrozen caveman lawyer. In fact, I’m not even practicing anymore! As such, big words and bright lights confuse me! I don’t understand medicine, science, procreation or evolution. I leave that to smarter people who aren’t DEI hires like myself. 

I say all this because I need your help to unpack a wild statement I heard Donald Trump say earlier during his shitshow interview at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago. ABC journalist Rachel Scott, whom Trump mocked as “nasty,” asked the twice-impeached vulgarian if he believed Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman, to which he responded, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know if she is Indian or Black?”

I didn’t know Black people could magically turn Black! I am learning new things everyday, such as Donald Trump alleging he is the President who did the most for Black people since Abraham Lincoln, you know the one who freed slaves. There was also President LBJ who oversaw the passing of the Civil Rights Act, but Trump giving tax cuts to the rich certainly takes the cake for the improvement and advancement of Black people. We also learned from Fox host Jesse Watters that men who vote for women transition to women! That must have been shocking news to the wives of millions of men who voted for Clinton in 2016, but I digress. 

Trump, a privileged white man, told a crowd of Black journalists that a Black-Indian woman running for President wasn’t really Black because she also identifies as Indian and then, somehow, only turned Black for the sake of opportunism even though she went to a historically Black college and pledged at a Black sorority. Apparently, he hasn’t met anyone biracial. He also can’t grasp how a daughter of an Indian mother and a Black man can self-identify with two races and be recognized and celebrated as such by a diverse, multicultural American in which nearly 34 million people are now biracial. 

This ignorance and racism is how Trump will heal and unify the nation.

Immediately after the 35 minute interview, which was supposed to last an hour until the Trump campaign pulled the plug, Trump tripled down on this talking point. At his Pennsylvania rally, the campaign showed a photo of Kamala Harris being sworn in as one of the first Indian American senators. MAGA also shared a video of VP Harris making dosas with Indian American actress Mindy Kaling. 

So far, every MAGA attack on Harris has failed and backfired. They tried “border czar” but that went nowhere because she isn’t a border czar and it was actually Trump who took credit for tanking the bipartisan deal. They mocked her laugh only to learn people like laughter and joy. They continue to mock her name even though Rep. Mike Johnson asked Republicans not to resort to racist attacks. They insult her as childless even though the misogynist attacks on women have utterly sunk JD Vance’s popularity.

When you’re all out of juice, you have to resort to what’s worked in the past. For Trump, that’s racism. He’s a one-hit wonder. Surely this is what will turn around his campaign and inject it with momentum and energy that will galvanize undecided voters, women, and the youth! 

Anyone in the press who said Trump had changed and become more serene and unified after his assassination attempt must resign. Please, just leave this profession. Find money and influence elsewhere. Also, anyone who remains in this profession, please finally pay attention to Trump and learn from your colleagues’ mistakes. This is what and who he is. If he is given a platform in which he cannot be challenged, then he will simply exploit it to spew his hate and propaganda. You have to engage in vigorous push back and follow ups. Don’t let him off the hook or give him room to gish gallop. 

Unfortunately, that’s what happened at the NABJ conference today despite the moderators’ best efforts. 

During this brief time on stage, Trump mocked and belittled ABC News’s Rachel Scott, one of the three Black female journalist moderators, who asked him why Black voters should trust him after she listed his numerous racist and hateful comments, which includes promoting the Birther conspiracy, telling Congresswomen of color to go back to their country, and dining with white supremacist Nick Fuentes. He was at least kind to his friend Fox host Harrison Faulkner who was there to run interference and whitewash his racist tendencies. Alas, even she couldn’t keep him disciplined. He spewed venom and ginormous lies about the economy, immigration, inflation, and abortion. (Journalists, for the last time, when Trump uses a televised forum to say that liberals want to abort babies in the ninth month and kill them after they’re born, you are allowed to call that out as a lie and set the record straight.) He also said he’d pardon the Jan 6 insurrectionists. 

The only positives were perhaps some fantastic clips for Kamala Harris to use in her campaign to remind everyone that her opponent is still the vulgar, unhinged racist he has always been. He refuses to debate her so he slings mud instead. He used this opportunity to address Black journalists to try out the latest attack of “She’s not Black!” Will it be successful with his base? Of course. Will it work to convert people on the fence? It remains to be seen. 

The only thing we learned from such a distasteful showing is that a 78-year-old racist running for President revealed he doesn’t understand how a woman named Kamala Harris can be both Black and Indian - and beat him in November.