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Donald Trump served up one of his most putrid takes in recent memory Tuesday while responding to a Reuters report detailing the slaveholding lineage of many American politicians.
The expansive project helps convey the breadth of slavery’s reach and how some political leaders' family fortunes derived from owning humans.
According to Reuters:
Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, Reuters determined at least 100 descend from slaveholders. Of that group, more than a quarter of the Senate — 28 members — can trace their families to at least one slaveholder.
Those lawmakers from the 117th session of Congress are Democrats and Republicans alike. They include some of the most influential politicians in America: Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.
It's a very nuanced report that helps convey how slavery impacted almost every family in the United States, in one way or another.
But this next paragraph seems to be the only line that made its way to Trump:
In addition, President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president — except Donald Trump — are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and — through his white mother’s side — Barack Obama. Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.
Take a guess. Did Trump respond thoughtfully to this well-researched report?
Of course not.
Instead, he celebrated it on his struggling social media platform — hilariously — as though he'd been vindicated in some way. As though the Trump family had been absolved of guilt for racism when that couldn't be further from the truth. He reposted the section about his family lineage lacking American slaveholders with a rather desperate plea: “I hope that every African American in our country is reading this right now. REMEMBER!”
Now, we know from Trump’s Frederick Douglass fiasco that he’s an untrustworthy teacher of Black history. And I’m certain “every African American” won’t be visiting his social media site.
But on their behalf, this African American did. And I have some thoughts.
First, it feels important to reiterate Trump’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Germany after slavery was abolished, so they didn't have the opportunity to buy and sell enslaved people. He comes from a line of shrewd capitalists, though, so can we really rule out the possibility that his family wouldn't have owned a few humans if permitted by the government?
And then there’s the obvious point — to anyone who understands history, at least — that one’s slaveholding lineage doesn’t necessarily mean the person is a beneficiary of that slavery. Many, many Black people have slaveholders in our lineage because many white plantation owners raped the enslaved women and fathered children whom they raised as slaves.
But understanding all of this would require Trump to understand institutional racism and consensual sexual relations — two concepts he's struggled to grasp time and time again.