This week, Trump will kick off his Black Voices for Trump Coalition initiative. Despite his claims, Trump’s policies have hurt African Americans. Take a look:
Economy:
Trump’s tax law disproportionately hurt African Americans.
- African Americans were disproportionately left out from Trump’s tax cut.
- African American households received only 5% of the benefits from Trump’s tax law, despite making up about 13% of U.S. households.
Education:
Trump rolled back Obama-era efforts geared toward protecting black students from discrimination in school punishment.
- The Trump administration rolled back Obama-era guidance on school discipline aimed at protecting black students from being punished more severely.
- DeVos delayed implementing regulations that helped identify racial disparities in special needs programs in public schools.
- Trump’s Education Department rescinded Obama-era guidelines for public schools to consider race in trying to diversify their campuses.
Criminal Justice:
Trump took us backwards on criminal justice by rescinding and weakening Obama-era protections on policing.
Trump worked to make life harder for defendants and the imprisoned.
- The Trump administration rescinded guidance geared toward protecting lower-income people from being buried in legal fees.
- Trump’s administration cut support for prisoner halfway houses for those transitioning back into society.
- The Trump administration sought to make legal aid less accessible and argued that some federal prisoners shouldn’t be entitled to challenge their sentences in court.
While Trump tries to publicly take credit for the release of inmates through criminal justice reform, his administration is privately working to put those same inmates back behind bars.
- Trump is touting the First Step Act in an attempt to reach out to the Black community, but his administration is working behind the scenes to undermine the law and put the inmates Trump claims to champion back behind bars.
Trump encouraged harsher sentences for drug offenses, including non-violent ones.
- Trump’s DOJ gave federal prosecutors wider latitude to pursue criminal drug charges and harsher sentences.
- Trump’s DOJ reinstituted the death penalty and advised federal prosecutors to seek death sentences in cases involving large quantities of drugs.
It’s not just his policies that hurt the African American community. We all remember when Trump…
Trump defended white supremacists and repeatedly refused to denounce the KKK as a candidate and as president.
- Trump said removing confederate monuments was “trying to take away our culture, our history.”
- Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides at a white supremacist march in Charlottesville.
- Trump refused to disavow David Duke and the KKK four times in one interview.
Trump repeatedly took aim at African Americans during his 2016 campaign.
- Trump believed that urban minorities writ large are “living in hell.”
- Trump described African Americans and Hispanics as communities wholly impoverished and crime-ridden.
- Trump suggested that all African Americans were living in poverty.
- Trump claimed he had “no opinion” of whether or not there were racial disparities in law enforcement.
- Trump decried the Black Lives Matter movement and thought they were looking for trouble.
