Black Voters on Donald Trump: We’ve Heard It All Before
Black Voters on Donald Trump: We’ve Heard It All Before
The New York Times
By YAMICHE ALCINDOR
When Tunette Powell, a black Ph.D. student in Los Angeles, hears Donald J. Trump speaking about African-Americans living in “war zones,” she thinks back to a high school math teacher who used to tell her to “go back to the ghetto.”
Mr. Trump has called for the return of stop-and-frisk, the police practice that critics and a New York federal judge likened to racial profiling. Ms. Powell remembered how police officers once searched a car she and her cousin were riding in, joking that the vehicle resembled one used in a robbery.
Mr. Trump has frequently retweeted messages from white supremacists. Ms. Powell recalled how a white college classmate informed her that his family got together at barbecues to ridicule black people.
With his years of questioning President Obama’s birthplace, his insinuation of voting fraud in black neighborhoods and his refusal to absolve the Central Park Five, Mr.
Trump has riled up and shocked voters not used to hearing black Americans’ sensibilities handled so dismissively on a public stage.
But when Ms. Powell and other black Americans were interviewed recently about Mr. Trump’s candidacy, shock was rarely a word that came to mind.
More often, they said, what they felt was a numbing familiarity: What the rest of America was now being exposed to are words and thoughts they have heard their whole lives.
READ MORE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bla...
The New York Times
By YAMICHE ALCINDOR
When Tunette Powell, a black Ph.D. student in Los Angeles, hears Donald J. Trump speaking about African-Americans living in “war zones,” she thinks back to a high school math teacher who used to tell her to “go back to the ghetto.”
Mr. Trump has called for the return of stop-and-frisk, the police practice that critics and a New York federal judge likened to racial profiling. Ms. Powell remembered how police officers once searched a car she and her cousin were riding in, joking that the vehicle resembled one used in a robbery.
Mr. Trump has frequently retweeted messages from white supremacists. Ms. Powell recalled how a white college classmate informed her that his family got together at barbecues to ridicule black people.
With his years of questioning President Obama’s birthplace, his insinuation of voting fraud in black neighborhoods and his refusal to absolve the Central Park Five, Mr.
Trump has riled up and shocked voters not used to hearing black Americans’ sensibilities handled so dismissively on a public stage.
But when Ms. Powell and other black Americans were interviewed recently about Mr. Trump’s candidacy, shock was rarely a word that came to mind.
More often, they said, what they felt was a numbing familiarity: What the rest of America was now being exposed to are words and thoughts they have heard their whole lives.
READ MORE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bla...
