Well. There ought to be a law against TPM doing this.
A woman is seen holding a sign behind Donald Trump, at his rally in Sanford, Florida. The sign reads “Blacks for Trump.” (See below.)
As TPM recounts, Trump took notice of that and other signs behind him, celebrating the diversity of his support base.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
“I love those pink signs, ‘Women for Trump.’ I love the signs behind me,” he crowed. “‘Blacks for Trump.’ I like those signs. ‘Blacks for Trump.’ You watch. You watch. Those signs are great!”
TPM is beside itself. The website’s author, Kristin Salaky, assumes — based apparently on the person’s skin tone — that the holder of the “Blacks for Trump” sign is “white.”
How rigid, imperialist, other-invalidating, and — let’s face it — dead white European male dominance-y can you get?
How does Mx. Salaky know this individual is even a woman, much less know that “she” “is white”? If the sign-holder identifies as black, shut up and salute. You don’t know just by looking that a person “is” white. All you know is what your implicit bias overlays unjustly on that other person.
Mx. Salaky goes on to deem it “inexplicable” that a “man” in a doctor’s coat with a stethoscope appeared in the crowd behind Trump at the rally. Good heavens, there could be any number of sustainable, socially responsible reasons for that. One could be that the “man” is actually a gender-fluid astral-projecting diplomat from a distant planet — i.e., that’s what ze identifies as — and a white coat and stethoscope are what such an individual wears on missions of sports viewing and food gathering, which is what xe is doing.
It could also be that an amateur film crew is updating B-roll for a new Village People video.
Whatever it is, there’s been a serious implicit-bias aggression here. I, personally, am extremely disappointed. I think you’ll agree with me that TPM ought, if nothing else, to expect better of itself.
