Trump posts racist video depicting the Obamas as monkeys

Tuur said:

Interesting - and predictable. The link I posted had no effect on the diatribes at all.

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Because it didn't show what Trump had reposted.

Edit: I'll correct that. It might well have been what was posted. But I'm not sure why the fact that it was tacked on to some nonsense about election fraud changes anything at all.

BPPLEE said:

I didn’t elect him

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Did you vote for him?

Yarddog said:

Did you vote for him?

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No

WolfGate said:

Trump only posted part of the original clip. The only heads on animals shown in what he posted were the Obamas on ape bodies.

The entire clip showed other heads, such as Hillary on a warthog and Illinois Gov Pritzker on an elephant. It had Biden as a monkey eating a banana. The intentionally obtuse among us trying to excuse Trump’s post will claim that means it wasn’t racist when he posted the Obama’s on ape bodies. Which of course it was.

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What I've seen is the longer clip...but the Obamas had been removed.

I had been under the impression that the Trump post included the entire clip. The entire clip could be argued as partisan rather than specifically racist (especially with Biden being illustrated as a baboon).

If Trump posted only the Obama image, that certainly conveys a particularly racist inclination rather than simply partisan.

Aryeh Jay said:

The name of the staffer who hacked President Trump’s account and posted the alleged photo has been identified as a John Barron.

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He's been with the Trump organization for a long time. And this wouldn't be the first time he did something profoundly stupid WRT Trump.

RDKirk said:

I had been under the impression that the Trump post included the entire clip.

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That's the impression I originally got as well.

RDKirk said:

If Trump posted only the Obama image, that certainly conveys a particularly racist inclination rather than simply partisan.

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It was just that image tacked onto some nonsense about election fraud. Tuur linked to it earlier.

FreeinChrist said:

It's an old one. The KKK used it. The Neo-Nazi's used it. To them, the "mud people" have no souls and are less than human. The attitude for that is why the Supreme Court back when referred to black slaves as 3/5s a person.

Picturing whites as monkeys when they do something foolish does not carry the same stain.

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Let's be accurate here.

The Supreme Court did not refer to slaves as 3/5ths of a person. The Supreme Court did say, in the Dred Scott decision, that "a black man has no rights a white man is obliged to observe."

The "Three-Fifths Compromise" relates to a compromise reached by the Constitution Convention over the determination of Congressional representation in the House based on the state populations. The slaveholders wanted their slaves counted as "persons" to increase their Congressional represenation. Abolitionists in the northern states did not want enslaved people counted at all for Congressional representation so that the slaveholding states would have less Congressional power.

The three-fifths compromise was a loss for the Abolitionists. Someone like Frederick Douglass would also have argued that people the slaveholderrs considered property in all other circumstances should not be counted as "persons" in the one instance that it favored slaveholders.

essentialsaltes said:

Overzealous staffer stole the tweeter out of Trump's hands and did it!

“A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” a White House official told MS NOW.

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I think Trump's phone should be handcuffed to a Naval officer like the Presidential Emergency Satchel.

I nominate Aryeh Jay.

RDKirk said:

I think Trump's phone should be handcuffed to a Naval officer like the Presidential Emergency Satchel.

I nominate Aryeh Jay.

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Seconded.

RDKirk said:

I think Trump's phone should be handcuffed to a Naval officer like the Presidential Emergency Satchel.

I nominate Aryeh Jay.

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Here here!

Desk trauma said:

We're in the age of Poe.

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We're certainly on the forum of Poe.

Remember your "Poe tags," folks.

RDKirk said:

Let's be accurate here.

The Supreme Court did not refer to slaves as 3/5ths of a person. The Supreme Court did say, in the Dred Scott decision, that "a black man has no rights a white man is obliged to observe."

The "Three-Fifths Compromise" relates to a compromise reached by the Constitution Convention over the determination of Congressional representation in the House based on the state populations. The slaveholders wanted their slaves counted as "persons" to increase their Congressional represenation. Abolitionists in the northern states did not want enslaved people counted at all for Congressional representation so that the slaveholding states would have less Congressional power.

The three-fifths compromise was a loss for the Abolitionists. Someone like Frederick Douglass would also have argued that people the slaveholderrs considered property in all other circumstances should not be counted as "persons" in the one instance that it favored slaveholders.

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The slave States wanted their “property” to be counted as “people” for representation’s sake, but chattel for everything else.

Bradskii said:

Because it didn't show what Trump had reposted.

Edit: I'll correct that. It might well have been what was posted. But I'm not sure why the fact that it was tacked on to some nonsense about election fraud changes anything at all.

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You have to go all the way to the last two seconds, and that is the point. The media account implies that Trump posted a video because it was racist. The actual post is of a conspiracy theory the 2020 election, but the media accounts conveniently didn't mention that, nor that the offending video is two seconds long.

This is a textbook example of spin. Did Trump or a staffer post the video? Yes. Did Trump or a staffer post the video because it is racist? Given it's a two-second bit that the bulk of the posted video ran into, not likely. That's not how it was spun, and how it was spun is how it ended up here. Note that this was the spin in all the media, including those that noted that one video ran into the other. Of the latter, none noted that the offending video was two seconds long.

Note that when you viewed the video, you assumed it wasn't what Trump had posted. The spin turned what actually happened into a different story.

Pommer said:

The slave States wanted their “property” to be counted as “people” for representation’s sake, but chattel for everything else.

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You've so very close to it. States with a high percentage of slaves did indeed want full counting for representation sake. States with a low percentage of slaves wasn't going to let that slide because those slaves were property, not citizens. Since they were not citizens, they had no right to vote. By increasing representation, it increased the voting power in the House (and electoral college) of states with a high percentage of slaves beyond those who could actually vote. In reality, it would erode the concept of one man, one vote. But if slaves weren't counted, states with high percentage of slaves would have likely walked, either from the convention or in refusing to ratify the new constitution. The three fifths compromise was there to get the new constitution out of the convention and increase the odds of ratification.

What is missed in the 21st century is slaves were considered people. Slavery is this: Owning people as property. It wasn't a people or property thing; it was people as property

Let the implication of that sink in a moment. The concept of slavery is that people could be bought and sold like anything else. At least one legal code from a slave state (Georgia) dated 1860 or 1861 stated that slaves are people. And yet it was was considered perfectly fine for people to be property in every sense of the word. And that is what slavery is, something that seems to be missed today.

LizaMarie said:

Many here may be too young to remember but depicting black people as apes and monkeys and subhuman was a thing back in the 1800's and before the civil rights movement and there was a Supreme Court case declaring that Negroes were only 3/5 human and there fore subjected to being owned by the White man. (Dred Scott).

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While there is a whole lot wrong with Dred Scott v. Sandford, this isn't what happened in the case. They never declared that Negros "were only 3/5" human. First, the whole 3/5 thing was in the Constitution itself, but even then the claim that "Negros were only 3/5 human" is misrepresenting it. What the Constitution said was:

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons".

The only people who weren't "free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years" or "Indians not taxed" are slaves. So for the purpose of determining the population of a state, it meant that you'd take the slave population, multiply it by 3/5, and add that. This was done as a compromise between factions who wanted to count slaves fully in the population and those who didn't want them counted at all, so the compromise was to count 3/5 of them, and is called the 3/5 Compromise.

So this 3/5 was in reference only to numerically determining the population and thus did not mean anyone was actually "3/5 human" and more importantly, did not apply to all blacks, only the slaves. Thus this did not say that "Negros were only 3/5 human".

This brings us to what Dred Scott actually said. In the first place, the case wasn't at all about whether blacks could be owned by the White man--slavery was longstanding practice and while there was a lot of controversy over whether it should be legal, there wasn't much controversy over whether it was legal. The fact slavery was constitutional was not in dispute.

What Dred Scott did decide was the following two things:
1) People of African descent were forbidden by the Constitution to become citizens of the United States
2) The federal government was not allowed to ban slavery in the territories (i.e. areas part of the United States but not a formal state)

These conclusions and their reasoning have gotten a lot of criticism, back then and now, and Dred Scott is generally considered one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever issued. Regardless, that was what Dred Scott decided. It wasn't about whether blacks were 3/5 of a person (I don't think the opinion even mentions the 3/5 compromise), whether they could be owned (they obviously could be), but whether they could be citizens and the question of territories.

Tuur said:

You've so very close to it. States with a high percentage of slaves did indeed want full counting for representation sake. States with a low percentage of slaves wasn't going to let that slide because those slaves were property, not citizens. Since they were not citizens, they had no right to vote. By increasing representation, it increased the voting power in the House (and electoral college) of states with a high percentage of slaves beyond those who could actually vote. In reality, it would erode the concept of one man, one vote. But if slaves weren't counted, states with high percentage of slaves would have likely walked, either from the convention or in refusing to ratify the new constitution. The three fifths compromise was there to get the new constitution out of the convention and increase the odds of ratification.

What is missed in the 21st century is slaves were considered people. Slavery is this: Owning people as property. It wasn't a people or property thing; it was people as property

Let the implication of that sink in a moment. The concept of slavery is that people could be bought and sold like anything else. At least one legal code from a slave state (Georgia) dated 1860 or 1861 stated that slaves are people. And yet it was was considered perfectly fine for people to be property in every sense of the word. And that is what slavery is, something that seems to be missed today.

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We’re getting far afield here.

The “problem” with (American) slavery was that it was generational. “People” born to slaves were also slaves. They were not able to be “born-free”. These people were considered as nothing more than other “livestock”; and were treated as such. “Livestock” that could talk, and reason and think for itself needs a very tight rein.

Tuur said:

You have to go all the way to the last two seconds, and that is the point. The media account implies that Trump posted a video because it was racist. The actual post is of a conspiracy theory the 2020 election, but the media accounts conveniently didn't mention that, nor that the offending video is two seconds long.

This is a textbook example of spin. Did Trump or a staffer post the video? Yes. Did Trump or a staffer post the video because it is racist? Given it's a two-second bit that the bulk of the posted video ran into, not likely. That's not how it was spun, and how it was spun is how it ended up here. Note that this was the spin in all the media, including those that noted that one video ran into the other. Of the latter, none noted that the offending video was two seconds long.

Note that when you viewed the video, you assumed it wasn't what Trump had posted. The spin turned what actually happened into a different story.

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I except all that. But it doesn't change the fact that the last 2 seconds were intentionally added. And it's not credible to think that anyone watching the video would somehow skip the last 2 seconds.

Following on from that, the WH, knowing exactly what had happened tried to suggest it was much ado about nothing. And then conceded it was an outrageous post by deleting it when they became aware of the reaction.

Yet no apology.

Bradskii said:

I except all that. But it doesn't change the fact that the last 2 seconds were intentionally added. And it's not credible to think that anyone watching the video would somehow skip the last 2 seconds.

Following on from that, the WH, knowing exactly what had happened tried to suggest it was much ado about nothing. And then conceded it was an outrageous post by deleting it when they became aware of the reaction.

Yet no apology.

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I don’t expect Trump to apologize for anything. He thinks he’s never wrong.

FreeinChrist said:

that "a black man has no rights a white man is obliged to observe."
THAT is okay? What is behind that mindset?

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RDRKirk somewhat abbreviated and paraphrased the quote from Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Here it is in larger paragraph; the brackets are my own (the full majority opinion can be found here):

They [those of African descent] had for more than a century before [the Constitution] been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

So strictly speaking, it isn't say that blacks have no rights a white man is obliged to observe, but rather asserts that for more than a century prior to the Constitution, they were regarded as having "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." If it is asked "what is behind that mindset", the answer is history is behind that mindset. It's really not a controversial assertion. The error of Dred Scott--well, one of the errors, at least--was jumping from this to supposing the Constitution didn't allow them to be citizens. Various criticisms of Dred Scott have pointed out the problems in the claim blacks couldn't become citizens (including the dissents at the time available here and here), pointing out historical errors in the majority opinion or the simple fact the Constitution simply doesn't say that.

But Dred Scott v. Sandford, for its considerable errors (and this is not even getting into its probleamtic assertions that bannning slavery in territories was unconstitutional), did not actually assert that "a black man has no rights a white man is obliged to observe" or "they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" but rather said they were regarded as such and used that as a major basis for its ultimate declarations in that blacks couldn't get citizenship under the Constitution.