Trump to Dance on the Graves of The Black Wall Street for MAGA Juneteenth

by Dominique DiPrima

President Donald Trump is being sharply criticized by many prominent African Americans including Senator Kamala Harris for his decision to hold a campaign rally on Juneteenth – in Tulsa Oklahoma. As the President may or may not know, this year marks the 99^th anniversary of the destruction of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street by mobs of rioting racists who killed hundreds of people and firebombed the thriving African American financial district into oblivion. And Juneteenth of course is a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. – marking the day when enslaved African Americans in Texas finally got word of the emancipation proclamation.

Trumps rallies are mostly white, often hostile and at times blatantly racist. For the President to choose all of that symbolism, at this moment in history, when confederate statues are dropping like flies, when even Nascar has banned the confederate flag from their events, and our entire nation is having a reckoning over police violence and systemic racism, speaks volumes. Representation matters. Symbols matter. And the President can’t have it both ways. Out of one side of his mouth he says his justice department will go after the officers who killed George Floyd as a top priority. Out of the other side he calls for military intervention against protesters and labels them terrorists. I know this is a shocker, but the President is lying to you. As Senator Harris said “This isn’t just a wink to White Supremacists…He’s Throwing them a welcome home party.”

It’s important for every one of us to call out the doublespeak, hypocrisy and prevarication in the most powerful way possible. Register. Vote.