Although the former president has undeniably capitalized on his stature as a conservative white male, Donald Trump has strategically worked to align himself with minority communities through indirect symbolism.
Over the past few weeks, Trump’s image has dominated mainstream media after an unsuccessful assassination attempt. The near-death experience prompted Trump to capitalize on the moment, breaking the shield of Secret Service officials to raise his bloody head and throw up a fist as the American flag hung picturesquely in the background.
Juxtaposed next to a representation of patriotism, the former president injected a spirit of resilience and resistance with the hand gesture widely known as a Black power salute.
Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton adopted the physical image of solidarity secured in clinched fingers in October 1966, during the rise of the Black Panther Party.
The two men adopted Malcolm X’s slogan, “Freedom by any means necessary,” leading a political movement for the people that lasted for the next decade. Two years later, during the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Their goal was to recognize the unjust treatment of Black people worldwide, including at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Now, more than 56 years later, Trump is consciously using the same trademark to signify his claims of persecution from all ends. Throughout the businessman’s political career, you’ll find him raising the first while boarding Air Force One, attending campaign rallies, and even during the 2017 inauguration.
What seems like a simple act has a deeper and more nuanced meaning than Trump’s team may ever know.
“The Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m discriminated against,” Trump told supporters at a rally in South Carolina earlier this year.
Trump made history this year as the first commander-in-chief to undertake criminal convictions of any kind, let alone the 34 felony counts spanning across several jurisdictions.
Instead of duly recognizing his foul behavior, Trump has used it as a proponent to amplify left-wing attacks, painting himself as a victim of an unjust system.
“Some of the greatest evils in our nation’s history have come from corrupt systems that try to target and subjugate others to deny them their freedom and to deny them their rights,” Trump said. “I think that’s why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what’s happening to me happens to them.”
He went on to add that his run-ins with the law have earned him a badge of honor and street credibility among the African American demographic.
“When I did the mugshot in Atlanta, that mugshot is number 1,” Trump proudly stated. You know who embraced it more than anyone else? The Black population. You see Black people walking around with my mugshot. You know, they do shirts, and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing—millions, by the way.”
Despite Trump’s more recent statements of affection for the Black community, he has adamantly opposed Black males, in particular. Under his orders, the Justice Department conducted the most federal executions in our nation within the past century after a 17-year hiatus.
And within Trump’s final week in office, five days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump ordered for five Black men to be killed through lethal injection as a means of capital punishment. One of them was Dustin Higgs, who proclaimed his innocence while lying on his deathbed sick with COVID-19 as the pandemic infested the prison in which he was residing.
“The federal government should not be needlessly taking more Black lives, and to do so on my father’s birthday would be shameful,” Martin Luther King, III, wrote in a Washington Post article after advocating for Higgs’ appeal.
The practice of advocating for the death of Black males is a habit for the former president, who also took out a front-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in 1989.
Trump’s actions sorely clash with Black power principles and rigidly align with the tradition of public lynchings rampant throughout the Deep South in the 20th century.
His efforts to disguise this methodology should alarm communities being wooed by the Republican seeking a second term.
Ashleigh Fields formerly served as editor-in-chief of The Hilltop at Howard University and assistant editor at The Afro-American.