South Carolina Primary

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Donald Trump suggested that Black voters “embraced” him due to his numerous indictments in a campaign speech over the weekend among other claims.

The history between Donald Trump and the Black community is inherently bad due to the former president’s long history of racist words and deeds against them. But the most egregious example might have been his most recent speech last Friday (February 23) where he claimed that “the Black population” embraced his mugshot taken in Fulton County, Georgia more than others. “You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know, they do shirts, and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing — millions by the way,” he said to the crowd at the Black Conservative Federation Gala held in Columbia, South Carolina.

Amid a smattering of faint applause, Trump decided to continue with a speech soaked with so much racism that many observers were shocked and appalled. He compared his current situation of being found guilty of fraud in New York and his pending cases for allegedly interfering with the 2020 presidential election) to the centuries of hardship that Black Americans have dealt with. “I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he said.
Trump would also go on to claim that he was “being indicted for you, the Black population” and create another bizarre moment prompted by the room’s lighting: “The lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see too many people out there. But I can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any white ones, you see? That’s how far I’ve come. That’s how far I’ve come. That’s a long — that’s a long way, isn’t it? Ah, we’ve come a long way together.”

The backlash to Trump’s remarks was swift. “It goes past politics. The nerve to act like we relate to mug shots — we all know mug shots because the criminal justice system, in many cases, wasn’t fair to us,” said social justice activist Rev. Al Sharpton.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s opponent in the primary, also blasted him over the remarks, calling them a “huge warning sign.”