Category Archives: Race

Trump gets it wrong on mass shootings, but Republicans deserve the blame

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Recent tragic events have, critics say, displayed once again the moral collapse of one of America’s two great parties

Presidential addresses in the wake of national tragedies are typically attempts to heal and unite. For critics of Donald Trump, it was more a case of wondering how much more damage he might do.

Standing in the diplomatic reception room at the White House after a weekend of bloodshed in America, the US president declared: “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.”

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‘Invasion’ and ‘fake news’: El Paso manifesto echoes Trump language

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A hate-filled document believed to have been written by the gunman bears striking similarities to the words we hear from Trump

Authorities are investigating a white nationalist “manifesto” posted on the far-right message board 8chan in connection with the suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting in the Texas border city of El Paso, which left 22 people dead.

Related: Trump blames 'violent' video games as El Paso death toll rises to 22 – live

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Trump tweets as gun violence and white nationalist terrorism stalk America

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Domestic terrorism now results in more deaths than the foreign kind but the president shows no sign of toning down his rhetoric

Two menaces have stalked America throughout its history. One is gun violence. The other is white supremacy. In El Paso, Texas, on Saturday they collided.

A 21-year-old gunman with a hatred of Hispanic immigrants killed 20 people in a shopping mall in the eighth deadliest mass shooting in American history. The suspect is believed to have posted online an anti-immigrant screed that praised the killing of 51 people in Christchurch mosques in New Zealand in March.

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Atlanta’s confederate monuments: how do ‘context markers’ help explain racism?

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Symbols dedicated to the south’s soldiers have come under debate for not mentioning their roots in racial segregation

Atlanta’s monuments to its Confederate past cannot be taken down by law. But the city is now moving to provide much-needed historical context on the realities of slavery, the civil war and the era of Jim Crow segregation that followed.

Homages to Atlanta’s history crop up in many cemeteries and parks. Little context accompanies those stone memorials with engraved plaques referring to “heroic efforts” and the south’s soldiers’ efforts to “unite” the country after the civil war. There is no mention of racism or slavery and segregation.

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Ronald Reagan called African diplomats ‘monkeys’ in call to Richard Nixon – audio

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Ronald Reagan made racist remarks about African delegates to the United Nations, newly released audio recordings have revealed. 'Damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes,' Reagan tells Richard Nixon, who erupts in laughter. At the time of the call, Nixon was still president and Reagan was governor of California


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Trump: ‘I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world’ – video

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The president called himself ‘the least racist person’ after he was accused of racist behaviour once again. In his comments on Tuesday, Trump also accused one of the people he has attacked, the Rev Al Sharpton, of being a racist and claimed his presidency has been a success for African Americans

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Al Sharpton: Trump ‘has a particular venom for blacks and people of colour’ – video

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The Rev Al Sharpton has addressed Donald Trump’s attack on the Maryland representative Elijah Cummings and his district of Baltimore. Speaking to reporters, the longtime activist said the president had attacked Cummings and his constituents ‘in the most bigoted and racist way’. Earlier on Monday Trump attacked Baltimore, the home city of Cummings, saying that it is ‘a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess’, adding that it was ‘the worst run and most dangerous [district] anywhere in the United States’

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Democrats and media condemn Trump’s racist Cummings attack

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In its response to Donald Trump’s racist attack on congressman Elijah Cummings, the editorial board of the Baltimore Sun said it “would not sink to name-calling in the Trumpian manner”.

Related: 'Own up to reality': 2020 Democrats urged to confront US racial divide

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‘Own up to reality’: 2020 Democrats urged to confront US racial divide

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As the NAACP gathered in Detroit, leaders warned presidential hopefuls not to shy away as Trump fans the flames

In August 2016, Donald Trump stood before an overwhelmingly white crowd in Dimondale, Michigan, and asked black people for their votes.

Related: Trump 'rat-infested' attack on Elijah Cummings was racist, Pelosi says

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Black US lawmaker says white man told her to ‘go back where you came from’

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State representative Erica Thomas says she was verbally attacked in supermarket while shopping with her nine-year-old daughter

A pregnant African American lawmaker in Georgia said she was verbally attacked in a supermarket Friday by a middle-aged white man who used profanity, called her vulgar names and told her to “go back where you came from” as her nine-year-old daughter looked on.

Erica Thomas, a Democrat and Georgia state representative from Austell, said the man was irate that she was in an express line with too many items. Thomas said she was in a line for customers with 10 items or less because she cannot stand for long periods of time.

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Laquan McDonald: four fired for alleged cover up of white officer’s role in killing

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Chicago Police Board finds the officers exaggerated the threat posed by the 17-year-old to justify his shooting

The Chicago Police Board on Thursday fired four police officers for allegedly covering up a white officer’s 2014 fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald.

The nine-member board found the officers exaggerated the threat posed by the 17-year-old McDonald to justify his shooting by Jason Van Dyke and voted unanimously for the dismissal of Sgt Stephen Franko and officers Janet Mondragon, Daphne Sebastian and Ricardo Viramontes.

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Trump has made Ilhan Omar the face of his re-election strategy

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In Omar, the president has at long last found a face to his stigmatization of Muslims – and so, too, have his allies

The chants of “send her back” reverberated across the rally of thousands on Wednesday as Donald Trump stood at the podium and attacked Representative Ilhan Omar, a naturalized US citizen who arrived in the country as a teenager after her family fled Somalia.

It was not the first time Trump had sought to vilify Omar, who in November became one of the first two Muslim women elected to the US Congress and has emerged as a key target of the president and Republicans.

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Tech’s modern-day ‘Yellow Peril’ scare is just the same old racism | Frank H Wu

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Claims by Peter Thiel of a Chinese fifth column within Google stoke paranoia against Asian Americans and threaten to ruin the economy – and our democracy

The billionaire investor Peter Thiel has accused Google of “treason” and called for a law enforcement investigation of the search engine’s parent company. He speculated that the Chinese government has invaded its employee ranks. A German immigrant via South Africa, Thiel is not alone; his remarks echo the repeated assertions of the rabble rouser Steve Bannon that there are too many Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley.

These claims, combined with similar charges of wrongdoing against students and professors of Chinese origin on campuses across the country, are as ominous as they are lurid. While Thiel presents no evidence, Bannon displays ample prejudice. They are inspiring paranoia about everyone of Chinese heritage.

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Divided House votes to condemn Trump’s racist attack on congresswomen

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Nancy Pelosi’s sharp rebuke of the president’s remarks prompted a challenge from Republicans who claimed rule violations

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution condemning Donald Trump’s incendiary remarks telling four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they “came from” as racist.

The measure, which formally rebuked the president’s comments, was approved on a mostly partisan-line vote of 240 to 187.

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‘His only tool is racism’: why Trump’s bigoted tirade could be a vote winner

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The president seems to regard divisive, nativist rhetoric as his best chance of staying in the White House. Analysts say he may be right

It was foul and repugnant. But was it a vote winner?

Donald Trump’s bigoted tirade against four congresswoman of colour, telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from, prompted widespread revulsion – the comments “drip with racism,” said the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer – and yet will not necessarily damage his chances of reelection.

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Judge advises $14m in damages to Jewish woman targeted by neo-Nazi ‘troll storm’

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Daily Stormer publisher incited his readers to contact Tanya Gersh, who received threatening emails, texts and voicemails

The publisher of a neo-Nazi website, who organized a “troll storm” to target a Jewish woman and her family with months of abusive messages, should have to pay more than $14m in damages and remove all posts that encouraged his readers to contact her, a US judge has recommended.

The US magistrate judge called the harassment campaign, launched by the Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin a month before Donald Trump’s inauguration, “egregious and reprehensible”. Anglin targeted Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in Whitefish, Montana, a town where the prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer and his family have sometimes lived.

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‘Go back home’: Trump aims racist attack at Ocasio-Cortez and other congresswomen

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Donald Trump used racist language to attack “the Squad” on Sunday, saying four progressive Democrats who have clashed with party leaders should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”.

Related: ‘Is Bernie going to come?’ Warren seizes on Sanders' Netroots absence

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Women picking fruit for UK firms in Spain ‘victims of trafficking’

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Lawyers say abuse claims by Moroccans must be investigated by Spanish authorities

Human-rights lawyers are warning that abuse claims by Moroccans picking fruit in Spain for UK supermarkets could amount to “state-sponsored human trafficking”.

The international lawyers say Spanish authorities have a legal duty to ensure the allegations by the women – that they have faced exploitation and abuse while harvesting strawberries – are properly investigated by the courts.

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French online hate speech bill aims to wipe out racist trolling

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Abuse on social networks pushes MP to draw up law that could be copied across Europe

France’s tough new law against online hatred aims to wipe out racist and homophobic trolling on social networks and could be replicated across Europe, according to the politician spearheading it as she faces daily racist abuse on Twitter.

Laetitia Avia, a business lawyer who grew up in the low-income Paris banlieue suburbs where discrimination is rife, was hailed as a symbol of French diversity when she entered parliament for Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party in 2017.

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