After receiving widespread backlash for posting a racist image of Barack and Michelle Obama, President Donald Trump has shared several posts with prominent Black celebrities in an apparent attempt to prove he’s not a bigot.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump shared several videos and photographs of himself side-by-side with some of the most well-known Black figures in entertainment, politics, media, and sports over the years, including Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson Sr., Sean “Diddy” Combs, Al Sharpton, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, and even his former friend and White House adviser Omarosa Manigault.
A TikTok montage video of Trump and several Black celebrities is marked with the caption, “A Timeline of Trump’s Bigotry,” seemingly suggesting his proximity to notable Black Americans dating back to the ’80s absolves him of condemnation that he is a racist. Other posts included a 1988 TV interview with Winfrey, in which he talks about a possible run for president, and another detailing how Trump supported Mike Tyson’s boxing career.
The timing of the Truth Social posts is notable, considering just days ago, Trump received bipartisan rebuke for posting a video that included an AI clip depicting the Obamas as apes. Though the post was eventually deleted, the president and the White House refused to apologize for the racist post, instead blaming it on an unknown White House staffer.
“Not during Black History Month,” said Democratic strategist Alencia Johnson, who has advised the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. She told theGrio, “The thing about Donald Trump is that if you call him a racist, he’s gonna double down even more and remind you that he is a racist.”
Johnson, founder and chief impact officer of the strategic communications firm 1063 West Broad, explained, “Just because when he was a businessman and a member of our popular culture and Black celebrities enjoyed hanging out with him, it doesn’t absolve him from his racism. The reality is that a lot of the people in those videos actually distanced themselves from him once he became president and enacted all these dangerous policies on Black people, which really speaks to who he is.”
Yemisi Egbewole, former White House Chief of Staff to Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, told theGrio of the latest Trump posts: “Did he post this or a staffer? Either way, a compilation video of every Black person you’ve ever come in contact with is not damage control.”
Whether or not Trump is trying to leverage his past connections to prominent Black figures to fend off his perceived racism, Johnson says the evidence is throughout Trump’s entire life and career.
“As much as he wants to say ‘look at my African-American over there’ and ‘look at my Black friend,'” said Johnson, “The facts remain the same since he lost housing discrimination lawsuits in New York, since what he did to five teenagers in the 1990s with the Central Park Five, add now the Exonerated Five now, to his policies, calling the folks from African nations coming from assh*le countries, to disinviting the only sitting Black Governor from a governors meeting that’s supposed to be bipartisan, to wanting to limit the vote and restrict the vote for Black voters, to gutting healthcare for Black people, to the 319,000 Black women who are without jobs, the list goes on and on and on and on.”
However, Johnson said the “real question” is for the “few” Black Americans who support Trump.
She asked, “Are they OK with this type of person leading the United States?”
