I noted earlier this week that @realDonaldTrump, frequent critic of black athletes, hadn’t yet mentioned @KingJames. I guess that CNN interview did change that, after all. Oh, and LeBron opened a school that same day. Here’s hoping that he is laughing now. rol.st/2LG3iJl
LeBron James is popular. Donald Trump is not. LeBron opened up a public school in an underserved community, the same one in which he grew up. Trump had to pay a $25 million settlement for running a fake university. rol.st/2LG3iJl
Trump’s @KingJames tweet likely evokes for many the notion of “you’ll always be a nigger to them.” It also recalls James Baldwin. “What white people have to do,” he said in 1963, “is to try to find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place.”
Baldwin, who had stated earlier that he is not a “nigger” but a man, continued. “If I’m not a nigger and you, the white people, invented him,” he said, “then you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on ... whether or not it’s able to ask that question.”
I do wonder why @realDonaldTrump so urgently “needs a nigger,” as Baldwin described. I would ask him. I wouldn’t expect a forthright response, nor for him to even understand the question. But so that you may, here is the full Baldwin interview from 1963.
