Trump is Racist

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, QMany said:

 

Counterpoint: Trump appointed Ben Carson, a BLACK neurosurgeon, the Director of Housing and URBAN Development. I understand if you want to appoint this lady to a certain position because she may be bilingual, have skills in that culture, etc. But that doesn't appear to be what Trump was doing, of course. He was just throwing out assigning the Asian lady to Asian things, somewhat like his decision to appoint a black man to an executive position with absolutely zero experience in urban development.

Like I said, he's an idiot and goes about things in a manner that creates an environment that is completely non-productive and demoralizing to the people trying to do the work.

 

 

[QMany]

We're on the same page! 

[BigRedBuster]

4 minutes ago, zoogs said:

I think it's important to let people define themselves. What's galling about Trump's response to her is he repeatedly ignores her informing him that she's from New York -- incidentally, she might not be very bilingual at all, or have anything beyond a casual understanding of Korean culture. What she does have is professional expertise in another capacity, and that just gets thrown out the window once she's typecast. He looks at her and sees "Asian woman", not "professional analyst specializing in hostage policy". So in this sense, to me, it's more than just that he alienates her personally, it's that he reduces her. And this is a reduction that people of different ethnicities face all the time, at every level of their lives.

 

To shift the focus slightly off Trump again for a moment, consider how Asians, and Asian women, are typically portrayed in Hollywood or on TV -- present avatar excepted! --  and this automatic box we might put around one we encounter becomes less surprising. Trump especially, because he more than most doesn't know anything beyond Diet Coke, his racist heart, and television.

Again....the issue is Trump and how he goes about this.

 

Another example.  Let's say Christiane Amanpour were an intelligence officer and knowing her family background.  Would it be inappropriate to go to her and say...."Hey, we understand you have some ties and knowledge to the Iranian culture, language..etc.  Would you be interested in helping with negotiations with Iran?"  I see absolutely no problem with that.

Now, if she says, no, I like doing what I'm doing....great.....move on.

 

But...like I've said...the way Trump goes about things, takes the ability to do this professionally completely off the table.

[funhusker]

4 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Again....the issue is Trump and how he goes about this.

 

Another example.  Let's say Christiane Amanpour were an intelligence officer and knowing her family background.  Would it be inappropriate to go to her and say...."Hey, we understand you have some ties and knowledge to the Iranian culture, language..etc.  Would you be interested in helping with negotiations with Iran?"  I see absolutely no problem with that.

Now, if she says, no, I like doing what I'm doing....great.....move on.

 

But...like I've said...the way Trump goes about things, takes the ability to do this professionally completely off the table.

But she apparently said nothing in the conversation to lead him to believe she knew anything about the situation in North Korea.  The only thing he knew about her is she was of Asian descent.  He had to drag it out of her that she was even of Korean descent.  He went on looks (race) alone and made an a dumb assumption.

 

He went about it the wrong way, like he does with almost everything.  But not only was it wrong in conversational structure (if that's a thing), it was also racist in nature.

Edited January 12, 2018 by funhusker

[BigRedBuster]

1 minute ago, funhusker said:

But she apparently said nothing in the conversation to lead him to believe she knew anything about the situation in North Korea.  He had to drag it out of her that she was even of Korean descent.  He went on looks (race) alone and made an a dumb assumption.

 

He went about it the wrong way, like he does with almost everything.  But not only was it wrong in conversational structure (if that's a thing), it was also racist in nature.

 

20 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

The problem is with how he goes about things and how he treats people.  It completely alienates so many good, hardworking people.  And, then you put this on top of all the other blatantly racist/sexist things he does and says and.....wow.....

 

9 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Like I said, he's an idiot and goes about things in a manner that creates an environment that is completely non-productive and demoralizing to the people trying to do the work.

 

5 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

But...like I've said...the way Trump goes about things, takes the ability to do this professionally completely off the table.

 

[funhusker]

I understand, BRB. But the reason Trump goes about things they way he does is because he's a racist dolt.  It doesn't matter how polished the language, if you assume a black guy is good at basketball without even knowing if he's ever played the game, that's racist.

 

 

 

edit: we both think Trump is a turd, let's just leave it at that

 

 

Edited January 12, 2018 by funhusker

[BigRedBuster]

1 minute ago, funhusker said:

I understand, BRB. But the reason Trump goes about things they way he does is because he's a racist dolt.  It doesn't matter how polished the language, if you assume a black guy is good at basketball without even knowing if he's ever played the game, that's racist.

 

 

 

I'm stumped.  Not sure how I've said anything different.

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, mrandyk said:

You guys are upset because he isn't PC and called a spade a spade.

 

/s

Intended irony?

[zoogs]

I think we agree about Trump. He's deplorable.

 

I think the larger awareness I want people to get from that is this response to the same tweet:

 

 

So I don't think you're exactly trying to say this is just Trump's boorish behavior and not the racist content of his views and actions, but I do want to clarify so that the latter remains at the crux of it. 

 

So this American analyst who says she is American and wants to be seen as just American...I'd say yeah, it's a bit of a problem to think maybe let's use her for Korea, but it's not in an "oh my god, shock and shame upon you for suggesting it" kind of way, if that makes sense. Her expertise is hostages. Who do we want on Korea? Probably experts on Korea. Asia policy. Foreign relations. Nuclear weapons. The way the article is presented, that's just not her area. Yeah, some people from Korean backgrounds will be both versed and interested enough to pursue such expertise -- but not all, because a lot of American immigrants from different backgrounds see themselves as "Americans". People around them don't, necessarily, in ways large and small. Throughout their lives. And that has an impact.

 

I understand that for some, this is another in a long line of various examples of Trump demonstrating his horribleness. I agree that it is -- though that's not the exact reason I wanted to post it. That reason is to understand the myriad strange obstacles, large and small, that Americans who don't look "like Americans" (what does that mean?) navigate life here. I see this as a really great example of that. It's not something that occurs to people as something that happens all the time, so here's an opportunity to raise the profile of the issue.

 

This is tangential and would have fit better in the racist thread, but another example, minus the Trump:

 

 

(unsurprisingly, Logan Paul is a huge fan of the Donald, though. Was a huge fan of Romney, too, at least insofar as it gave him a chance to be hostile to Obama.)

 

[teachercd]

40 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Here's the frustration about the intelligence analyst who is of Korean decent issue.

 

I honestly think it is perfectly logical that if this person's parents immigrated from Korea and even though she was born and grew up in NYC, that she would have a better understanding of the Korean culture and maybe even be bilingual in Korean...etc.  Which, in turn would make it easier for that person to understand the issues and do a better job on the team negotiating with NK.  I get that.

 

It's no different than if I wanted a sales person to sell our products in Mexico, I know a number of kids who grew up in Mexican immigrant homes that are smart, bilingual and would probably do a better job than Harry Smith that grew up on a ranch by Thedford, NE.

 

The problem is with how he goes about things and how he treats people.  It completely alienates so many good, hardworking people.  And, then you put this on top of all the other blatantly racist/sexist things he does and says and.....wow.....

Yep, I completely agree with all of this.

 

[funhusker]

55 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

I'm stumped.  Not sure how I've said anything different.

You said what you said clearly.  The confusion was in how I understood it.  I understood your comments to somehow explain why it isn't racist.  For example: your comment, "The problem is with how he goes about things and how he treats people," led me to believe that you thought his conversation was only inappropriate because he doesn't know how to interact with people, not because it was racist.

 

Your example of bilingual people with a familiarity to Mexican culture being better salespeople in Mexico is spot on; as long as you know they are bilingual and familiar with Mexican culture. Trump didn't know if this women was Korean, he didn't know if she spoke Korean, he didn't know anything about her except what she was telling him about Pakistan.  I can agree with you that if he had known that she was familiar with the Korean Peninsula, spoke Korean, and was really good at her job in international negotiations, that he might float the idea to her based on qualifications.  That would be fair and appropriate.  But he based the assumption on only the way she looked, disqualifications be damned.

 

Anyway, we agree.  Just wanted to share my thought process with you.

[zoogs]

Grateful to Mieke Eoyang for following up her tweet, which introduced me to the one BRB posted, with a full column on Politico: 

 

"It means to some, their mental picture of an American doesn’t include you": https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/12/trump-diversity-us-government-216310

 

Here are two tweets spotlighting and supporting her article from a white man and a white woman (both media people in the natsec/foreign policy areas), which frankly I think will help make her case to a broader audience: 

 

 

[Moiraine]

I think this is a good place for this:

 

Quote

According to O'Keefe, Trump "suspected Obama had presented himself as a foreign student on application materials to ease his way into New York's Columbia University, maybe even Harvard too, and perhaps picked up a few scholarships along the way."

 

 

How can you possibly think Obama isn't smart enough to have gotten into Columbia/Harvard without cheating and not be a racist? It's plain as day he's incredibly smart even if you don't agree with his policies.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Moiraine

[QMany]

2 hours ago, Moiraine said:

How can you possibly think Obama isn't smart enough to have gotten into Columbia/Harvard without cheating and not be a racist? It's plain as day he's incredibly smart even if you don't agree with his policies.

 

Obama was also the Editor-in-Chief or President of the Harvard Law Review, which they just don’t hand out to the unqualified. 

[QMany]

Bump.