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Trump’s Pro-Black Inaugural Address

Trump’s Pro-Black Inaugural Address

He addressed three of the great problems that continue to plague the Black community.

On January 20, 2017, at 11:51 am ET, Donald Trump delivered his first speech as American president.

With several former presidents — including the first Black president, Barack Obama — reportedly squirming uncomfortably behind him, President Trump spoke to the thousands gathered in attendance with these words, delivered the most pro-African American inaugural address in recent history:

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

Although President Trump did not address African Americans specifically in this address, with this speech he addressed three of the great problems that continue to plague the Black community.

One of these great problems is, of course, crime. In the city of Chicago, for example, a city which is inextricably linked to Barack Obama, more than 750 people murdered in 2016, giving it more homicides than the more populated cities of Los Angeles and New York combined.

Furthermore, Chicago’s population is only 32.9% Black, according to the 2010 Census, yet 75% of its murder victims are African American.

Incredibly, the murder per capita rate is even higher in Baltimore and St. Louis than Chicago’s, as is the percentage of Blacks in its population, and again the vast majority of those murdered in these cities are African American.

Nationally, Blacks comprise roughly 50% of the murder victims, despite being only around 13% of the population.

Perhaps because 93% of Black homicide victims are killed by other Blacks, President Obama rarely expressed concern about the epic rate of violence in the Black community.

In his inaugural address, President Trump did just that.

President Trump also addressed another of the great burdens of the Black community: education. According to the most recent report from the Economic Policy Institute [EPI]

“The chances of ending up in a high-poverty or high-minority school are highly determined by a student’s race/ethnicity and social class. For example, Black and Hispanic students—even if they are not poor—are much more likely than White or Asian students to be in high-poverty schools.”

This is significant for Black and other minority communities because, as the EPI adds, “[a]ttending a high-poverty school lowers math and reading achievement for students in all racial/ethnic groups.”

This results in the cycle of poverty commonplace in many inner cities, in which economically disadvantaged parents send their children to be under-educated at “high-poverty schools,” which contributes to the likelihood that those children will eventually grow to be economic disadvantaged parents themselves.

Other presidents have referenced the problem of poor schools — President Obama simply mentioned in his 2009 inaugural address, “our schools fail too many,” for example. But only President George W. Bush — who said in his 2001 inaugural, “the ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth” — has referenced the linkage of under-education and poverty before President Trump.

Since, as mentioned, these failing schools are disproportionately Black, African Americans have reason to cheer President Trump’s comment.

African Americans may also cheer President Trump’s inaugural comments on immigration. Several recent presidents have mentioned immigration before President Trump, but in each reference, immigration was presented as a positive for all Americans, with no caveat about the price immigration — especially illegal immigration — inflicts upon certain segments of our communities.

President Obama, for example, in his second inaugural address, told his fellow Americans, “our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” with no acknowledgement of the price of this immigration upon many Americans.

But as Harvard professor George J. Borjas points out in Immigration and the Economic Status of African-American Men, a paper written with Professors Grogger and Hanson, there is a cost to immigration, and that cost is often paid by Black Americans:

“As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, we find a reduction in the wage of Black workers in that group, a reduction in the employment rate, and a corresponding increase in the incarceration rate.”

In contrast to President Obama, President Trump promised in his inaugural that “every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”

President Trump will continue to find his relationship with African Americans to be, in a word, problematic. As during the administration of one of Mr. Trump’s supposed influences, Ronald Reagan, many Blacks will continue to criticize President Trump for not being inclusive enough. They did during the 2016 RNC convention, as well as when he made his cabinet picks. Others will criticize him when the president does reach out to the African American community, even going so far as to attack Blacks receptive to speaking with him. Many of these criticisms are valid; some aren’t.

But, despite a very rough start, President Reagan’s presidential tenure actually became a boom time for African Americans. Black unemployment fell, Black home ownership rose, and the Black middle class grew.

We can only hope that if he continues his focus on inner-city crime, poor schools, and illegal immigration, the Trump years will be remembered as a good time for Blacks as well.

–DK

This post first appeared at African-American Conservatives website.

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Comments

I am afraid that any accomplishments by Trump towards the black community will be recognized only by historians. The political climate now is so anti-Trump that any black wanting to become a pol will bash him no matter the good he does. Jerks like Cory Booker, who has a checkered past, go after any white Republican or conservative because they know that 70-80% of black voters respond to the attacks. His disgraceful untruthful attack on Jeff Sessions is a good example.

    DoNotDeleteMe in reply to inspectorudy. | January 25, 2017 at 12:03 am

    Sadly, most Black folks will never give President Trump credit because he is not former President Barack Obama. My community is loyal to him to a fault even though he has nothing to show for it except a legacy of photo-ops with Black celebrities and being the first “Black” President. It really is sad and I state this as a Black American woman. President Trump, on his campaign trail and on stage during the debates (taking a big political risk) that he is going to help the Black community. Yet he is met with opposition and disdain. I am over it and even had family members disown me because of my support for President Trump and because I told the truth regarding how ineffective former President Barack Obama was during his celebrity-esque reign.

And he has a 98.2 percent chance of losing the election.

Pro-American, black, brown, white, etc. A [class] diversity agnostic President is refreshing. There’s a time to recognize our colorful differences, but it shouldn’t be in policies that affect the general Welfare and individual rights.

Amen!!

Peoples are acting like a young boys or girls finding their first love – so insecure, they keep taking the temperature of the relationship.

Relax. So far, SO good.

Repairing the damage of the Obama catastrophe is going to take a little time.

    And when Trump’s actions actually help the black community, you know the MSM will report it as Obama’s policies working and helping blacks despite racist Trump’s attempts to block them.

    A pure lie, but they will be consistent.

    No matter what Trump says or does, he will be vilified.

Todd Elliott Koger | January 25, 2017 at 7:08 am

According to published reports President Donald Trump’s National Diversity Coalition, led by white attorney Michael Cohen and Pastor Darrell Scott hosted the Amer-I-Can Inauguration Party at the offices of a K-Street law firm. 35 people paid $2,500 and approximately another 150 paid $1,000 to attend. Attorney Cohen and Pastor Scott pledged National Diversity Coalition financial support for legendary athlete Jim Brown’s Amer-I-Can foundation. The most recent available nonprofit tax form (2014 records) for Amer-I-Can demonstrates expenditures of $271,553, including $138,634 in salaries and $129,332 in expenses. However, Jim Brown and his wife are said to be the only listed employees. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer outlined President Trump’s plan to curb violence and empower black communities. According to Cohen, President Trump intends to support mentoring and promote self-determination primarily through Brown’s Amer-I-Can foundation. Cohen also would not say how much money the Trump administration intends to put into the Amer-I-Can foundation, though he promised the nonprofit would see some investment.

https://theundefeated.com/features/jim-brown-tells-black-america-yes-you-can/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/…/u8sDBdTnrWH7Oo…/story.html

In his Twitter profile Scott referred to himself as Dr. Darrell Scott. President Donald Trump has also referred to Scott as “Dr. Darrell Scott.” In his church bio Scott’s says: “Already a 21st Century Theologian and Scholar in his own right, Dr. Darrell went on to receive his Doctorate of Divinity in November of 2004.” That is, his bio is worded in a way that creates the impression that he earned the degree. To use the title “Dr.” is inappropriate and misleading since the degree was not earned. Compounding the problem is the questionable status of the college. St. Thomas Christian University is not accredited by any Department of Education or Council for Higher Education Accreditation recognized accrediting body. St. Thomas is currently unlicensed in the state of Florida. Mr. Scott appears to be using his degree from an unaccredited school to create an impression that he earned a doctorate.
http://www.patheos.com/…/trump-transition-team-member…/

From a human standpoint, fixing problems in the inner cites/black community is the right thing to do.

From a political standpoint, we only have to get 20% of the black vote. Do that and the prog project to create a communist society is dead. The democrats cannot win without there 90%+ black support.