Akron, Ohio – As Trump Tries Minority Outreach, Many Blacks Unconvinced

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    This photo taken Aug. 22, 2016 shows James Smith in East Cleveland, Ohio. Black Republicans cheer Donald Trump for a newfound rhetorical outreach to African-Americans, but say the GOP presidential nominee must take the message beyond arenas filled with white supporters and venture instead to the inner cities he has started talking about at rallies. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)Akron, Ohio – Black Republicans cheer Donald Trump for a newfound outreach to African-Americans, but say the GOP presidential nominee must take his message beyond arenas filled with white supporters and venture into the inner cities.

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    Many rank-and-file black voters, meanwhile, dismiss the overtures as another racially charged pitch from a campaign aimed exclusively at whites, from Trump’s emphasis on “law and order” to his withering critiques of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black chief executive. It was Trump in 2011 who fiercely challenged Obama’s U.S. birth.

    “Any minority who would vote for him is crazy, ought to have their head examined,” said Ike Jenkins, an 81-year-old retired business owner in the predominantly black suburb of East Cleveland.

    Foluke Bennett, a 43-year-old from Philadelphia, went further, labeling the GOP standard-bearer’s remarks as “racist,” pointing, among other things, to his referencing African-Americans as “the blacks.”

    Trump is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, an 80 percent African-American city and capital of the state with the nation’s highest proportion of black residents. It is unclear whether he will address black voters directly; so far, his appeal to them has been delivered before white audiences in mostly white cities.

    Mississippi is overwhelmingly Republican because of whites’ loyalties, as opposed to battlegrounds such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, states Obama won twice and where the largest cities offer at least a theoretical chance for Trump to pursue marginal shifts among significant black populations.

    Trump has previously rejected high-profile speaking slots at the NAACP’s annual gathering, along with events sponsored by the Urban League and the National Association of Black Journalists.

    “He’s got to take his arguments to the streets,” said Brandon Berg, a black pastor who drove Monday from Youngstown, Ohio, to hear Trump at the University of Akron. Berg said he’s an outlier: an undecided black Republican. For most African-Americans, Berg said, Trump must “meet them where they are.”

    Trump has scheduled an event Thursday billed as a roundtable with black and Latino leaders invited to his New York offices, and his aides say he is considering more rallies in heavily minority cities in swing states. The Washington Post first reported those plans, specifically mentioning charter schools, small businesses and churches in black and Latino communities.

    It’s a well-known electoral conundrum for Trump and Republicans: The United States population grows less white with each election cycle, so to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, the New York billionaire must attract more non-white voters or run up an advantage with white voters to a level no candidate has reached since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide.

    Obama won 93 percent of black voters in 2012 and 95 percent in 2008, according to exit polls. This year, polls suggest Trump could fare even worse than the Republicans who lost to Obama.

    Trump has confronted his steep path in the last week, asking minorities, “Give Trump a chance!”

    In Wisconsin, he declared to minorities: “You live in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose?” He argues illegal immigration disproportionately affects economic opportunities of blacks and Hispanics.

    In Ohio, he insisted without evidence that foreign “war zones” are “safer than living in some of our inner cities.” He pledged a Trump administration would “get rid of the crime,” allowing minorities to “walk down the street without getting shot.”

    Calvin Tucker, the lone black GOP convention delegate from Pennsylvania, says Trump’s arguments resonate with him. “We need a change agent,” said Tucker, 64, of Philadelphia. “He’s breaking down his overall economic platform and relating it to African-Americans,” Tucker added, extolling the GOP’s emphasis on entrepreneurial pursuits.

    Certainly, each Trump pronouncement drew roaring approval from his rally audiences. Many black voters, however, hear the appeal differently.

    As he sold Cleveland Cavaliers NBA championship swag, street vendor Steve T, 47, said the “disrespectful” comments represent “the real Trump.”

    “Not all of us live in poverty, crime,” he said. “You can’t get votes from people you don’t even understand.”

    In Philadelphia, Bennett said, “It’s crazy to think that he would have the audacity to ask us what we have to lose. If anything, his comments just made the line even more clear as to why black people won’t vote for him.”

    In East Cleveland, Jenkins and several other retirees gathered in a neighborhood restaurant echo many of Trump’s arguments. James Smith, a 79-year-old former butcher, points out the window and laments “a community that’s old and poor.” Jenkins says “handouts keep people in slavery.” Randall Darnell blasts an economy that traps laborers, black and white, in “legalized slavery.”

    But every one plans to vote for Clinton, and nearly all said they see Trump’s latest arguments aimed more at whites.

    “He’s talking about black people” when he mentions violence in cities, Smith said, “not to black people.”


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    8 Comments
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    eli845
    eli845
    7 years ago

    They are unconvinced that what? That the Democratic party has done so much for them? What did they do for them or for anyone? Just because they say they care? Hillary Clinton has been in politics for the last 30 years. What good has she done for anyone? Besides for her donors. Giving a handout is not considered doing good, that only destroys. Real tzekaka is giving a job not a handout. It’s mind boggling how anyone sane can vote for a Democrat in general and for Hillary in particular. Come on prove me wrong, show me where I’m wrong.

    Mark Levin
    Mark Levin
    7 years ago

    The Democrat Party has done NOTHING for blacks as well as other minorities. The idea started in the early to mid 60s with LBJ and continues to this day. UUnfortunately the black community is so blinded by liberalism and the gifts they receive, that they get get away from the Democrats. They are, in essence, wards of the Democrat Party.

    Only those who have gotten away from that dependant mindset have made something of themselves.

    hashomer
    hashomer
    7 years ago

    Trump has been dog whistling attacks against blacks since day one, attracting Brietbart racist white supremacists and trailer park idiots to his minions. Now he’s ‘reaching out’ to them? This flip flop will turn off his supporters and further kill his slim chance at being elected Fuhrer.

    bennyt
    bennyt
    7 years ago

    How’s Obummer’s change working out for you so far?

    7 years ago

    To #6 - What is wrong with Social Security and Medicare? It it was up to you, you would probably abolish both of those programs!