Trump’s Language of Exclusion
This week’s Presidential address is ostensibly about African American History Month, but something about the way the President framed his visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture caught my attention:
It’s a new beautiful Smithsonian museum that serves as a shining example of African-Americans’ incredible contributions to our culture, our society, and our history.
This caught my attention because in trying to highight the work of Black Americans, Trump uses language which sets them apart from “our culture.” Rather than saying he appreciates the contributions African Americans have made to “America” or to “the nation” or even to “culture” more broadly, he says they made contributions to OUR culture, OUR society, and OUR history. And who is the “OUR” of this sentiment?
Given what we know about Trump himself, his Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, his staffer Stephen Miller, and the strains of Trumpism more generally, it is safe to say that he means white, Protestant, European Americans.
In this address, Trump salutes African Americans for contributing, rather than creating. For adding to the white culture, rather than improving it. For being “additions” to American history, rather than inherent actors in it. For being outsiders. This is unacceptable language. It is, plainly, the language of segregation, of “separate but equal.” It is also the language of appopriation: “thanks, Black people, for giving us music, oratory, slang, and other cultural elements! Now they belong to US!”
Some may argue that this is merely lazy language, which Trump is definitely known for, but in a prepared, written address, given to a camera, the language cannot be seen as anything other than deliberate. He is sending a clear message about who he thinks this country belongs to, and it is a dangerously racist message. He sounds not only like a classic segregationist here, but something akin to the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg would “assimilate” entire planets or societies, saying:
Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
The Borg’s goal was unity and efficiency at the cost of individuality and resistance. Beware.
