At a campaign rally in Dimondale, Michigan tonight, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made an appeal to African-Americans to take a risk and cast their ballot for him in November. Trump said:
“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”
While his numbers are off, Trump is right that Black Americans are in dire straits.
About 21 percent of Black youth – not 58 percent – are unemployed, compared with just 10 percent of whites, 10 percent of Asians, and 11 percent of Hispanics. In 2011, 23.4 percent of whites worked in low-wage jobs (earning poverty-level wages or less), but more than a third — 36 percent — of all Blacks did.
Most damning of all, in 2010 Black families had a net worth of just $5,000, a figure dwarfed by the white family net worth of $97,000.
https://youtu.be/-sb0Ne0coeg
Trump concluded his appeal with a dubious promise:
“At the end of four years, I guarantee you I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”
There’s no doubt that African-Americans need to see change, but Trump will not be the one to deliver it. And the Black community — certain misguided individuals notwithstanding — knows it. Recent polls show that just 6 percent of Black voters have committed to Trump.
This might have something to do with the fact that he and his father were involved in housing discrimination against African-Americans in the early 1970s. Or it might be due to the many racially-charged comments he’s made, including his comment about a Black employee at his Atlantic City casino:
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”
Maybe African-Americans’ reluctance to back Trump stems from more recent events, such as his frequent insinuations that President Barack Obama was born in another country. Or his Tweet that claimed 81 percent of white homicides are perpetrated by Blacks, when in reality the figure is less than 15 percent.
Or it could be his hesitancy to denounce the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, who all but endorsed Trump earlier this year.
Whatever the cause, one thing is sure: African-Americans have plenty of reasons to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.
Watch him tell Blacks they’ve got nothing so they should vote for him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeYf1734aM&t=17m13s
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
