Donald Trump Archives | Anti-Racism & Anti-Defamation Alliance

Before you accuse someone of racism, look in the mirror

on: October 03, 2018

Racism is often easy to spot. When a cab driver fails to stop for a black person; when Jews were recently spit upon while walking in a Muslim neighborhood in France; when Muslims are assumed to be terrorists.

But most racism is more subtle. And often those who shout the loudest about racial bias are guilty of discrimination themselves.

As I have documented in the past, the only two significant counties in North Carolina that lost black population the last decade are homes to Chapel Hill and Asheville, the two most progressive communities in the state.

Are policies that restrict construction of new homes in low-cost rural areas—forcing the gentrification of in-town black neighborhoods—racist? Is the fact that the Asheville and Chapel Hill school districts consistently have the highest disparity between the test scores of blacks and whites a sign of racism?

Is spending a fortune on educating children in Mandarin, a curriculum seldom chosen by black and Hispanic children, rather than addressing the racial academic performance gap, a subtle form of racism? Does banning from your city limits the most popular retailer for low-income residents to buy their groceries send a message that certain people are not welcome?

Harvard political scientist Ryan Enos looked at how whites in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s backyard behave when minorities appear in their homogeneous communities. As reported in The New York Times, Enos published a book titled “The Space Between Us,” suggesting that “the ideological commitment of liberals in these and other similar communities may waver, or fail entirely, when their white homogeneity is threatened….Enos demonstrates that the liberal resolve of affluent Democrats can disintegrate when racially or ethnically charged issues like neighborhood integration are at stake.”

Also read: One prison taught me racism. Another taught me acceptance

The experiment Enos ran consisted of injecting Spanish-speaking people into commuter train stations located in upscale Anglo suburban communities outside of Boston. The local population had an average income of about $150,000; 88 percent had college degrees. These communities rejected “racist” Donald Trump by margins ranging from 25-50 percent.

In his 2014 paper published by the National Academy of Sciences, Enos describes his study in detail. His basic conclusion was: “The good liberal people catching trains in the Boston suburbs became exclusionary…..Exposure to two young Spanish speakers for just a few minutes, or less, for just three days had driven them toward anti-immigration policies associated with their political opponents.”

How world leaders reacted to Trump at the UN

on: September 26, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United Nations now feels “like home,” but his speech to the yearly assembly in New York didn’t exactly get a warm reception from world leaders gathered there.

From thinly veiled jabs during their speeches to full-on laughter when he was at the dais, many world leaders condemned Trump’s rejection of “globalism” and what he sees as a broken international system in need of reform.

Here’s a round-up of how world leaders reacted to Trump during the General Assembly gathering.

French President Emmanuel Macron

Macron, who has cozied up to Trump in the past and invited him to a military parade in Paris on Bastille Day in 2017, rejected Trump’s foreign policy vision and said in his own speech that “no single one of us can effectively combat inequalities.”

The French leader also defended the Paris agreement on climate change, from which Trump withdrew the U.S. in June 2017.

“France continues with all interested parties to spearhead this global fight against climate change,” Macron said. “In the G7, we will be working to see the Paris obligations increased. Should someone be against that, we shall nonetheless press ahead through new fora.”

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno

Peña Nieto, in his last appearance at the U.N. before handing over the presidential mantle to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, defended multilateralism as “the best way to defend the sovereignty and dignity of each state.”

In his speech, he also called on the United States to end the commercial embargo on Cuba, saying it would bring benefits for the entire Western hemisphere. Trump tightened restrictions on U.S. business with and travel to the island in an attempt to trigger political change in Havana.

Moreno joined the calls to lift the embargo in his own remarks, saying that as long as the embargo continued, the nations of the world would not be able to reach “true liberty and democracy.”

“We insist on respecting state sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention,” Moreno said. “Militarism is not the answer. It only brings suffering, pain, and death.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Rouhani’s rhetorical assault in his General Assembly speech was the latest in a war of words with Trump, who has railed against Iran since before arriving in the White House.

Trump last year withdrew from the joint nuclear agreement brokered by the Obama administration and reinstated economic sanctions on Tehran. Rouhani rejected the unilateral moves as signaling “an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.”

“It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world ride public sentiments and gain popular support through the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism and through xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition,” Rouhani said.

Trump had sharp words for Iran in his own speech, but earlier in the day, he tweeted of Rouhani: “I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!”

The speeches weren’t all confrontational. Trump has previously lavished praise on Erdogan — the Turkish president who he has said “is getting very high marks” despite criticism for cracking down on political dissent in Turkey — and Erdogan seemed to echo Trump’s talking points Tuesday by calling for reform of the United Nations.

“We need to admit that, in time, the United Nations moved away from the capacity to meet the expectations of humanity for peace and welfare,” Erdogan said. “We expect more abundant and flexible support to Turkey, which has prevented a large refugee influx [from Syria] to spill over elsewhere in the world.”

But he wasn’t entirely on Trump’s side. Erdogan said “those who remain silent in the face of repression against the Palestinians only embolden their oppressors,” seemingly a criticism of Trump’s strident support for Israel.

Also read: CNN Pundit Blasts Trump for ‘Appeal to Racism’

Assembled world leaders

Perhaps the most obvious sign of the incompatibility between Trump and the United Nations came during the U.S. president’s own speech, when he drew laughter from the audience after boasting of his administration’s success.

“In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” Trump said before leaders audibly laughed. “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay.”

Members of the German delegation were also seen smirking as Trump lambasted the country over a Russian energy pipeline, which he claimed would make the country “totally dependent on Russian energy.”

Donald Trump Warns That Defamation Lawsuit Could Turn Into 21 Mini-Trials

on: September 10, 2018

Donald Trump Warns That Defamation Lawsuit Could Turn Into 21 Mini-Trials

On Friday night, Donald Trump submitted a court brief in New York in a bid to avoid intrusive discovery demands in the ongoing lawsuit brought by Apprentice season five contestant Summer Zervos, who accuses Trump of defaming her when denying he attacked her a decade ago in a hotel room. The President of the United States is resisting turning over documents related to alleged illicit sexual conduct with many other women.

Now, Trump’s attorney Marc Kaswowitz is strongly suggesting that if the judge forces the handover of these documents, Trump will be issuing subpoenas to nearly two dozen women accusing him of sexual assault. And that, adds Kasowitz, will become a spectacle.

“Rather than sharpening the issues for trial, the Request would result in significant delay and prolixity and likely lead to ‘unfettered litigation,’ including in excess of 21 mini-trials concerning each of the women identified,” states a memorandum in opposition to document requests. “The parties would have to subpoena each of these women to disprove each of their accusations. The invasive discovery would lead to a media circus that would risk tainting the jury pool and lead to additional ‘mini-trials,’ as plaintiff acknowledges, concerning the admissibility of the accusations and whether the conduct was sufficiently similar, as well as the witnesses’ credibility.”

Trump previously attempted to avoid this lawsuit while serving in office by holding up the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“No one is above the law,” responded the judge in allowing the lawsuit to move forward last March.

Trump is “reserving all rights to his immunity” under the Supremacy Clause, but hasn’t attempted to petition the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of whether lawsuits may proceed in state court against the leader of the federal executive branch. Doing so now could inject some political consideration into the pending nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the high court.

Nevertheless, Trump wants the judge to give “special consideration to the burdens” of being the nation’s leader and invokes an almost-forgotten 2002 decision concerning a request to depose Bill Clinton in a lawsuit over Primary Colors, a thinly veiled novel about Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“This Court gave deference to the burden on former President Clinton in denying a request to depose him, noting that he ‘still has important responsibilities to fulfill, and should not have his valuable time taken away to appear unnecessarily at a deposition,'” writes Kasowitz. “A sitting President should be accorded even greater respect.”

According to Trump’s brief, the demand for “irrelevant” information about illicit sexual conduct towards other women amounts to “propensity evidence,” an inadmissible testing of his character.

Zervos asserts that the document requests are necessary for several reasons including showing Trump exhibited a pattern of behavior.

US Republican resigns after racist comments about NFL players are unearthed

on: September 04, 2018

US Republican resigns after racist comments about NFL players are unearthed

A Republican Party official has resigned from her position after a series of racist social media posts, most of which were aimed at NFL team the Pittsburgh Steelers, were unearthed last week.

Carla Maloney, a former member of Pennsylvania’s Beaver County Republican Committee, made the announcement after local news outlet Beaver Countian received a tip-off email containing screenshots of inflammatory comments.

In a slew of racist posts, Maloney took aim at “overpaid, ignorant blacks” and complained that white people in America were victims of “reverse racism.”

The comments were written under an alternative name, but Beaver Countian’s investigation confirmed that Maloney was the user responsible for the posts. The account has since been deactivated.

Many of the racist insults were written after the Pittsburgh Steelers last year protested the American National Anthem by collectively refusing to walk onto the field, and players from other teams – mostly famously Colin Kaepernick – decided to ‘take a knee’ in protest.

The Steelers’ decision to sit out the anthem came in the wake of Donald Trump’s NFL rant, during which he encouraged anyone refusing to stand for the anthem to be removed.

After the controversy Maloney wrote:

Steelers are now just as bad as the rest of the overpaid baboons.

How many men and women have lost limbs or died to protect this country, and you baboons want respect.

Let’s see how the baboons get paid when white people stop paying their salaries.

In a more general post, she stated a belief that America was suffering an epidemic of “reverse racism”, and also predicted that there would be “another civil war soon[er] rather than later.”

‘Reverse racism‘ is a fear commonly stated by far-right activists, but it’s one which is misguided, especially in a Western context. It’s been established on numerous occasions that racism is structural, meaning that it requires a combination of individual prejudice and collective power.

Alexia LaFata summarised these facts concisely in a 2015 op-ed for Elite Daily, writing:

There has never, ever, ever been a national set of laws or systems put in place to systematically oppress white people or push them to a status that is ‘less than’.

Not once. Ever. So ‘reverse racism’ can never truly exist.

Maloney also wrote that she was fed up of “overpaid ignorant blacks telling [her] what [she] should believe in.”

“I will tell you what I believe in,” she continued, “and that is our flag and National Anthem and America, period. End of story.”

You don’t like it here? Go to Africa, see how you like it there. We are all Americans, not African American, not Hispanic American.

WE ARE ALL AMERICAN.

Maloney, an outspoken Trump supporter, has since written a letter of resignation and announced it alongside a public apology for her “distasteful, inappropriate and insensitive social media posts.”

She also claimed to come from a “diverse family that represents modern America.”

Kushner Reportedly Worked to Strip Jordan’s Two Million Palestinians of Refugee Status

on: August 06, 2018

Kushner Reportedly Worked to Strip Jordan’s Two Million Palestinians of Refugee Status

Kushner raised the issue with Jordanian officials during a visit to Amman, Foreign Policy reports ■ Move appears to be part of broader effort to halt UNRWA, which Kushner allegedly called ‘corrupt and inefficient’

Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, has reportedly pressured Jordan to strip the refugee status of more than two million registered Palestinians living in the country.

According to a report in the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy, Kushner raised the issue with Jordanian officials in the region during his visit there in June.

Hasan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, claimed that the senior aide’s move was part of a broader effort by him and the U.S. administration to render UNRWA, the UN aid agency providing relief to Palestinian, irrelevant and halt its work in Jordan and in other countries in the Middle East.

“[Kushner said] the resettlement has to take place in the host countries and these governments can do the job that UNRWA was doing,” Ashrawi said.

The Palestinians’ chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told reporters after Kushner’s visit to Jordan in June that the latter’s delegation said it was ready to stop UNRWA funding and redirect the sum allocated to the agency to Jordan and other countries that host refugees.

Emails written by Kushner and obtained by Foreign Policy point to Kushner’s evident dismay with the UN agency as well as to discreet attempts to put a stop to UNRWA’s work — a move that would essentially render millions of Palestinian refugees status-less.

“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” the senior aide reportedly wrote Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt in an email dating back to January 11, 2018. “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” Kushner said of UNRWA.

Other such expressions were reportedly repeated in different exchanges the president’s son-in-law had with other U.S. officials.

Donald Trump Attempts Move in Stormy Daniels Defamation Suit

on: July 27, 2018

Donald Trump Attempts Move in Stormy Daniels Defamation Suit

Late Monday, Donald Trump demanded that Stormy Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against him be moved from New York to California. Given all the legal wrangling so far in L’Affaire Stormy, it’s tempting to shrug off this venue-changing bid as a boring procedural gambit that’s not nearly as important as, say, the recent revelation that Trump is on tape discussing payment to keep an alleged affair silent. That said, Trump’s filing is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. It’s far from certain Trump will be successful in his latest motion. Regardless, the president is strongly suggesting for the first time that he wants to force testimony from his arch-nemesis, Michael Avenatti.

But let’s rewind.

On behalf of Daniels, Avenatti has brought several legal actions against Trump. The earliest lawsuit was filed in March in response to an arbitration demand that his side made over an alleged breach of a so-called “hush agreement.” The porn star challenges the validity of a deal that obligates her silence about an affair. Unfortunately for Daniels, the case has been paused due to the criminal investigation into Trump’s one-time personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

The more recent defamation lawsuit concerns a comment that Trump made after Avenatti released a sketch of a man who allegedly threatened Daniels into remaining silent back in 2011. Trump tweeted, “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”

This defamation case is not paused. Cohen is not a co-defendant. And it’s taking place in New York, where a different judge ruled earlier this year that Trump isn’t immune from facing a defamation claim while in office.

Now Trump is looking to move the case, and in doing so, his attorney Charles Harder is attempting a bit of a double-step.

Anti-Muslim hate crime in the UK is at an all-time high, study shows

on: July 19, 2018

Anti-Muslim hate crime in the UK is at an all-time high, study shows

The last few years have seen hate crimes figures in the UK steadily rise to extremely concerning numbers, indicating that widespread intolerance is on the rise.

A harrowing new report, released by Tell MAMA, an organisation whose aim is to aid victims of anti-Muslim violence, confirmed this increase hugely affects the UK’s Muslim community; in 2017, a total of 1,330 incidents were reported, of which 1,201 were confirmed to have been motivated by Islamophobia.

These are the highest numbers recorded since the organisation began collating statistics in 2012, and they mark a 16.3 percent increase on the amount of crimes recorded in 2016.

The report details various different categories of hate crime, but offline or ‘street-level’ incidents are still the most common – more than two thirds of cases involved physical altercations on the streets, or the vandalism of Muslim institutions of Muslim-owned properties. This marks a 30 percent increase on 2016 figures.

The number of online attacks has also risen by 16 percent, an increase which the report says can be “partially attributed to the way in which ideologically-motivated accounts felt emboldened by major trigger events, (such as terrorist attacks) and broader Islamophobic discourses in the public sphere”.

Anti-Muslim accounts became a topic of nationwide discussion this year when Donald Trump retweeted a series of posts made by “far-right extremist group” Britain First. Other renowned hate-mongers, including ex-English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, were also permanently banned from the social media site as part of a crackdown on hate speech.

The report also points to a rise in discriminatory ‘Twitter bots’, one of which was linked to a Russian ‘troll army’ and helped launch a xenophobic media campaign fuelled by an image of a hijabi woman checking her phone in the aftermath of the Westminster attack.

She quickly became a target for wider Islamophobia, and was later forced to defend herself. Upon discovering that her image had been circulated as part of an anti-Muslim hate campaign, she reported the incident to Tell Mama, who wrote:

[The use of this image] has undermined the confidence of an innocent young woman who was also caught up in the melee after the attacks.

Examples like these highlight societal willingness to scapegoat innocent Muslims in a wider attempt to buoy Islamophobia.

U.S. police chiefs oppose Trump move to detain immigrant families

on: June 27, 2018

U.S. police chiefs oppose Trump move to detain immigrant families

Republican and Democratic U.S. police chiefs and sheriffs on Wednesday urged U.S. congressional leaders to find alternatives to detention of immigrant families because of the risks it poses to children and its huge cost.

In a joint letter, 48 law enforcement heads appealed to lawmakers to consider possibilities other than incarceration, such as allowing families to live in the community and require heads of households to wear ankle bracelets or receive telephone checks while awaiting court or immigration hearings.

Police chiefs from across the geographic and political spectrum voiced apprehension at locking up migrant families at a time when U.S. law enforcement is trying to gain the trust of immigrant communities.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order last week to end separation of children from parents, which had occurred because of his administration’s policy of prosecuting all adults caught entering the United States illegally. The police chiefs praised the order.

But the zero tolerance policy remains in place and under the order, which is likely to be challenged in court, families would instead be detained together for the duration of immigration proceedings, which can take months or years.

Family detention centers could radicalize young people, pushing them toward street gangs or hate groups, said Houston police chief Art Acevedo.

“The last thing we need to do is marginalize and disenfranchise young people,” said Acevedo, who emigrated to the United States from Cuba as a child. “You can accomplish the safety aspect and monitoring aspect at a fraction of the cost without having the negative impact on kids.”

Vetting of families would show most do not need to be incarcerated as they pose no threat to the community, the group said.

Confinement would endanger their children’s physical and emotional development, according to the active and retired officials who included the heads of major law enforcement groups such as Montgomery County, Maryland, police chief Tom Manger, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Taxpayers could save millions of dollars each year through incarceration alternatives, given the average cost of holding a person in family detention is above $300 a day, according to the group.

Past alternatives to immigrant detention were more than 99 percent successful in getting family members to immigration hearings, it said.

“Local governments have been using alternatives to incarceration for a long time,” said Fresno, California, Sheriff Margaret Mims, a Republican who runs a local jail.

We must come together to fight the resurgent racist right

on: June 16, 2018

We must come together to fight the resurgent racist right

The 15,000-strong violent far-right protest to “free Tommy Robinson” on Saturday 9 June has raised major questions for all those who value our diversity. The racist right are using Robinson to reorganise. Nazi salutes and Islamophobia were at the centre of the mobilisation. This is the first serious attempt since the collapse of the English Defence League (EDL) to develop a racist street movement and give it a political form. It is supported internationally by notorious figures including from the US and the Dutch Islamophobic right.

It is absolutely vital that all who oppose this come together in a united mass movement powerful enough to drive these new developments on the far right back. Donald Donald Trump has played a major role in galvanising the racist right. We will take to the streets for the Together Against Trump demonstration coinciding with his visit on 13 July. And when Robinson’s supporters take to the streets again on 14 July, we will protest against them too. Wherever the far right’s support grows so does racism and violence. Let’s come together to defend our multicultural society from those who spread hatred and division.

Diane Abbott MP Shadow home secretary
John McDonnell MP Shadow chancellor
Len McCluskey General secretary, Unite the Union
Dave Prentis General secretary, Unison
Talha Ahmed Treasurer, Muslim Council of Britain
Mohammed Kozbar Chairman, Finsbury Park Mosque
Rabbi Lee Wax
Sabby Dhalu and Weyman Bennett Co-convenors, Stand Up To Racism
Ged Grebby Chief executive, Show Racism the Red Card
Richard Burgon MP Shadow justice secretary
Laura Pidcock MP Shadow minister for labour
Cat Smith MP Shadow minister for voter engagement and youth affairs
David Lammy MP
Emma Dent Coad MP
Marsha De Cordova MP
Andrew Gwynne MP
Peter Hain Labour, House of Lords
Claude Moraes MEP
Julie Ward MEP
Jean Lambert MEP
Tim Roache General secretary, GMB
Kevin Courtney NEU, Joint general secretary
Mark Serwotka General secretary, PCS
Dave Ward General secretary, CWU
Matt Wrack General secretary, FBU
Mick Cash General secretary, RMT
Ian Lawrence General secretary, Napo
Steve Gillan General secretary, POA
Manuel Cortes General secretary, TSSA
Mick Whelan General secretary, Aslef
Kevin Maguire Journalist
Michael Rosen Poet
Salma Yaqoob
Roger Huddle and Red Saunders Founders, Rock Against Racism
David Rosenberg Author
Alan Gibbons Author
Dr Siema Iqbal Co-founder of Avow (Advancing Voices of Women against Islamophobia)
Julia Bard National Committee, Jewish Socialists’ Group
Claudia Webbe Labour party NEC and Islington councillor
Margaret Greer National race equality officer, Unison
Harish Patel National equalities officer, Unite the Union
Ian Hodson National president, BFWAU
Tony Kearns Deputy general secretary (postal) CWU
Steve Hedley Deputy general secretary, RMT
Jane Loftus Vice president, CWU
Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah Executive director, UK Black Pride
Shahrar Ali Home affairs spokesperson, Green party
Maz Saleem Anti-racism campaigner/Stand Up To Trump
Kate Hudson General secretary, CND
Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition
Kerry Abel Chair, Abortion Rights
Asad Rehman Executive director, War on Want
Sam Fairbairn People’s Assembly

Trump fails to halt ‘Apprentice’ contestant’s defamation lawsuit

on: May 18, 2018

Trump fails to halt ‘Apprentice’ contestant’s defamation lawsuit

A New York state appeals court on Thursday denied U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to halt a defamation lawsuit by a former contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice” who accused him of making unwanted sexual advances.

In a one-page order, the Appellate Division in Manhattan did not explain why it refused to stay the lawsuit by Summer Zervos while the president appeals a March 20 lower court ruling that allowed the California restaurateur to pursue her case.

The White House was not immediately available for comment.

Trump is appealing a ruling by Justice Jennifer Schecter of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, which rejected his claim that as president he was immune from lawsuits over private conduct predating his entering the White House.

Zervos, an “Apprentice” contestant in 2005, accused Trump of kissing her against her will at a 2007 meeting in New York and later groping her at a Beverly Hills hotel.

She first came forward in October 2016, a month before the presidential election, following the release of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump spoke in vulgar terms about women.

While Trump apologized for his comments, he said repeatedly during his campaign that all accusations made by women after the “Access Hollywood” recording became public were “lies.” He also republished on Twitter a post calling Zervos’ claims a hoax.

Zervos has said those denials amounted to defamation and that diners avoided her restaurant after she was branded a liar.

“We look forward to proving Ms. Zervos’s claim that defendant lied when he maliciously attacked her for reporting his sexually abusive behavior,” Zervos’ law firm, Cuti Hecker Wang said in a statement on Thursday.

Several women have accused Trump of improper sexual conduct or said he had affairs with them.

Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to end an agreement in which Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 not to discuss her alleged affair with Trump.