100 Black Pastors Never Endorsed Trump Nor Said They Would; Trump Blames Black Lives Matter
PoliticsOn Monday, after publicizing a press conference promising the endorsement of 100 black pastors who then said they never actually endorsed him, The Donald said they were pressured into saying that. Or maybe they simply realized they were being played?
Trump’s statement, according to ABC News:
“Probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes all lives matter,’” Trump said Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” referring to the movement protesting against police brutality and the killing of unarmed African-Americans.
Shocking that promoting “all lives matter” on a day when cops in both Baltimore and Chicago are on trial for killing black people would be reasonable fodder to shy away from him.
Meanwhile, the church leaders are in damage control mode after learning that what they thought was a private meeting with Trump was 1) broadcast, 2) broadcast as an endorsement, and 3) broadcast as endorsement to be capped off with a public press conference.
“It’s a miscommunication,” said Darrell Scott, the senior pastor of New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who helped to organize the meeting scheduled for Monday afternoon in New York — one of several Trump has convened in recent months with black religious leaders.
Now the meeting between Trump and the ministers has been re-branded from an “endorsement” press conference to a “private, informational meet-and-greet.” Now, even Trump admits he has no clue what’s happening at this thing.
… “I have no idea what the meeting is really. … We’ll see what happens. I don’t know it it’s an endorsement, I don’t know if it’s an endorsement by some…. I do think pressure was put on them by people who may disagree with certain things,” added Trump, who said he has “a great relationship with the black pastors.”
Meanwhile, 100 other black pastors and activists collectively published an open letter on Ebony, imploring their partners in Christ to wake up and walk away from Trump.
What theology do you believe Mr. Trump possesses when his politics are so clearly anti-Black? He routinely engages in the kind of rhetoric that brings out the worst sorts of white racist aggression, not only toward Black people, but also toward Mexican-Americans and Muslim-Americans, too. Surely, we can agree that this kind of unloving and violent language does not reflect the politics of the Christ we profess?
A likely unnecessary reminder that this is the same guy who suggested America lock up Muslim refugees, build a wall at the Mexican-American border and suggested that a black protestor at one of his rallies “should have been roughed up.” The obvious question: why were these 100 black clergy even interested in a meet-and-greet in the first place?
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