White people are the only ones still surprised by Donald Trump’s racism

The following commentary by Julio Ricardo Varela was posted on the NBC News website January 13, 2018:

People of color have always seen the danger of the president’s prejudice quite clearly.

President Trump discusses the violence, injuries and deaths at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville as he talks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Aug. 15, 2017. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Why is anyone still surprised by Trump’s behavior in 2018? Even if his long and storied history of racism had escaped the “Apprentice”-watching public that viewed him as little more than a master of the celebrity-reality show genre, it’s been close to three years since he launched his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015.

His then-comments about Mexico — “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” — will forever be etched in America’s history of unfiltered Know Nothing xenophobia, especially since he admitted thereafterthat they were pre-planned and not off-the-cuff. Continue reading “White people are the only ones still surprised by Donald Trump’s racism”