Trump’s Trail of Smears
“We cannot and will not stand silent when our Native ancestors, cultures, and histories are used in a derogatory manner for political gain.”
Jacqueline Pata, Exec. Dir., National Congress of American Indians – May 3, 2017
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Our president never misses an opportunity to say or do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Last week, though, he outdid himself.
He made two grievous errors at the same time.
He’d invited three true American heroes – known as Navajo Code Talkers – to the White House.
It was a special event for some very special men to be given their long overdue honors.
During World War II, they were part of a group of 400 to 500 Native Americans whose primary job had been to transmit radio and telephone messages in their primary languages.
That rendered the enemy powerless to decipher those messages, because they’d never heard native languages.
The stage was set for President Trump to give those men a heartfelt tribute.
Except the person who set that stage, and a president, who apparently has little knowledge of history, pulled a massive blunder.
Right behind the podium where Trump was about to honor those men, there was a portrait of the seventh President of the United States – Andrew Jackson.
In the 1830’s Jackson had championed the Indian Removal Act.
It was his desire to have Native Americans (along with some mixed-race individuals, black freedmen and slaves) removed from the southeastern United States – and banished to areas west of the Mississippi River.
That led to tens of thousands of people being displaced, and thousands of them dying in what is now known as the “Trail of Tears”.
Somebody should have figured out that it might have been an insult to those Code Talkers, that the portrait of a man who had no use for them was hanging right behind them.
But there’s a steadily dwindling number of people who’re willing to claim that there’s an over-abundance of tact in the White House these days.
Especially with Trump’s second insult to those Code Talkers.
While calling two of the Code Talkers to the presidential podium, Trump decided he’d tell some kind of a joke.
“You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas,” he told them.
Pocahontas is the slur Trump frequently makes against Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
It’s right out of the Donald Trump Cheap-shot Handbook.
Anybody he believes is a challenge to his superiority is given a nickname.
Trump began calling Warren “Pocahontas” some time ago.
In fact, at least one leader of a prominent Native American organization has been offended by it. (See the quote above)
Yet Trump doesn’t care if people are offended by what he says. He’s got political points to make, and he’s going to make them.
That little “joke,” was met with cold stares in the room, and with outrage outside of it.
“I think it’s racist and I think he’s trying to use that as a put-down, and I think it’s inappropriate,” said Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation.
The Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, Harold Frazier, went even further.
“…Leave the office you bought and take your swamp things with you,” Frazier said.
But we know that if Trump decides to insult Warren again, he’ll pull the word “Pocahontas” out and attack her with it, because he’s never experienced any consequences for his “jokes.”
Besides, whenever anybody asks him and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about his statements – they both double-down on their attacks.
To Sanders, her boss hadn’t said anything wrong. It was Sen. Warren who should be blamed, because she’d used her supposed “Cherokee” heritage to further her career.
There’s no proof Warren ever did that.
Or, there was no reason for Trump to bring-up Warren’s name at an event that had nothing to do with her.
It was just another opportunity for Trump to act like a 10-year-old.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.