It’s a rhetorical question for a lot of people, but Donald Trump’s crazed birther rants don’t normally get called out as racist in the media. The Grio’s @ZerlinaMaxwell makes the case that if Donald Trump were from the South, he would be called on the carpet for playing the race card.
Let’s face it: if Donald Trump were from a state south of the Mason Dixon line, his birther rants would be called out as racist, plan and simple. Trump, who is based primarily in the Northeast, enjoys a friendly relationship with New York media elites and thus his rants are declared outside of the mainstream and maybe even “ridiculous,” but are almost never identified racially biased.
As The Nation’s Ari Melber eloquently noted last year, “[Birtherism] is a putatively non-racial, vaguely constitutional way to challenge the legitimacy of the first black president and appeal to racists without sounding officially racist.”
For his part, Trump says Obama’s skin color has nothing to do with his conspiracy theory. He defends himself from the charge after the jump…
The place for in-depth analysis, commentary and informed perspectives. Recommended
