ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œContext! Context!ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ I can hear myself insisting to a class of advanced reporting students in Journalism 355. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œCast a glance backward, and another glance forward. Get beyond the five WÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s of Who-What-When-Where-Why. Dip into the Whither and the Whence.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œWhitherÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ meaning ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhatÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s the root of the current dilemmaÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ and ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhenceÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ meaning, ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œWhere is the situation likely to go from here?ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
In actuality I did indeed teach such a course at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro in the mid 1970s while I was a reporter and columnist on The Greensboro Record (later The News and Record). Hope I remembered then what IÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™m writing about here.
The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhoÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ in todayÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s story is President Donald J. Trump. The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhatÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ is his seemingly erratic behavior in freelancing policy on immigration, Ukraine-Russia, and tariffs, D. C. policing, often seeming to make it up as he goes along.
The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhereÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ is anywhere Trump happens to be on a given day (the when). And the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhyÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ is often a mystery to readers, viewers and listeners as they consume media of every stripe and fashion.
If only the media would spend more time re-evoking TrumpÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s formative years as a child growing up in Queens, New York City, in a household with an authoritarian white supremacist father wheeling and dealing in real estate, weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™d have some idea of how Trump developed the mindsets he has now.
And that ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhitherÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ would help us majorly to understand the why of it all.
Fred Trump was an overbearing loudmouth ever ready to air his grievances about how ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œtheyÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ were intruding on polite, well-mannered society, they being notably ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œpeople of color.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ On a routine basis the elder Trump availed himself of the slurs against black and brown Americans that often went unchecked by his white neighbors and peers.
Published reports from the era say he was arrested at a 1927 Ku Klux Klan rally in his home borough of Queens in 1927. He was either a card-carrying member of the Klan or else a Klan sympathize.
ItÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s not hard to imagine the conversation around the Trump house when different ethnicities were being discussed.
The other thing the young Donald heard ad nauseam was Fred TrumpÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s notions of ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwinning in business,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ which meant outsmarting whomever he was striking a deal with, and ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œgetting the upper hand.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ For the Trump side to win, somebody on the other side had to lose.
Little wonder then that in Donald TrumpÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s days as a Manhattan real estate magnate he had his staff pen a C with a circle around it on condo applications turned in by black prospects. The circled C apps somehow just never got approved to move in.
No real mystery either why Trump fired the second black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown. No justification was given for that dismissal.
Not hard to see either why Trump stood up for the blatantly racist neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 with their chant ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œJews will not replace us!ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Even after a vehicle driven by a hate monger plowed into a white counterprotester, Heather Heyer, and left her dying on the street, Trump unhesitatingly proclaimed, ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThere were good people on both sides.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
Still later Trump opined that immigrants from Latin America were ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œpoisoning the blood of our country.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ He also wondered whether the immigrants from south of the border ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwere even human.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ A back-handed slap at all Americans of color, whatever their ethnic heritage.
And he made a show of welcoming a group of white South Africans to our shores, conveying the clear idea that these were the kind of immigrants America truly needed.
Earlier this month Trump lashed out at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington for its slavery exhibit, which he ordered taken down. A classic dictator ploy: Edit history to take out the negatives in a countryÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s past.
If we were to cast a glance forward from this summer 2025, what might we glimpse as the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œwhenceÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥?
Because of TrumpÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s campaign against DEI ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” diversity, equity and inclusion ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” we can envision discrimination against qualified people of color for university admissions and hiring in the professions and advancement in judicial circles and politics. We may even see not-so-subtle attempts to roll back the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson, especially in the area of equal opportunities in education, hiring and housing.
All to make sure that white Americans are not ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œcheated out of their rightful place.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
