A man who makes a living from calling attention to systemic racism through his DEI initiatives has penned an article expressing concern that black men may be attracted to former President Donald Trump, who survived a gun attack.
Early Sunday morning, about 14 hours after the fatal shooting that nearly took President Trump’s life, Forbes It published a column about the shooting written by Sean Harper, a professor of business and education at the University of Southern California and a self-described “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) expert.”
“Will President Trump use the assassination attempt on him as an opportunity to seriously address the epidemic of gun violence in America?”
In a column titled “Is surviving a gunfight Donald Trump’s next appeal to black voters?”, Harper seems outraged by Trump’s attempts to reach out to the black community, particularly black men, who have a common experience with the criminal justice system.
“The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly argued that the release of his mugshot in August 2023 of his criminal record resonated deeply with Black voters because they know firsthand the inequities of our nation’s criminal justice system,” Harper wrote.
Harper acknowledges that “more black men are saying they will vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election than they did four years ago,” but he does not believe that Trump’s outreach to black men has been effective, because black men who say they will vote for Trump in November do not cite “commonalities with judicial injustice” as a reason for their support.
Indeed, Harper has taken issue with Trump’s attempts to connect him to the black experience, accusing him of inventing a “racially problematic kinship narrative” to enforce that connection. “Hopefully, getting shot won’t become an equally problematic strategy to connect Trump to the experiences that too many, if not all, black people have,” the tenured professor at USC awkwardly adds.
In his column, Harper implicitly warned Trump not to exploit iconic black imagery for political gain. One such image was: gesture Trump RegularlyIncluding immediately after the shooting.
After being shot in the ear on Saturday evening, Trump stood before his supporters, fist raised and bleeding from his face, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Harper drew a parallel between Trump’s impromptu, and perhaps habitual, fist-pumping and the pre-planned “Black Power Salute” by U.S. track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics. “I hope that Mr. Trump does not claim that his raised fist was a sign of respect for two powerful black Americans, Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos,” Harper said.
Harper also worries that President Trump will use the moment he raised his fist after the death of George Floyd to show solidarity with the 2020 protesters. He argued that any such link between President Trump and the 2020 protesters is “false” and disingenuous.
Rather than using the assassination attempt as an opportunity to garner more votes, Harper suggested that black men should use the occasion to advocate for gun control, while noting the alarming rate at which black men die from gun violence. In most cases In such cases, pull the trigger.
“Will President Trump view the assassination attempt on him as an opportunity to seriously address the epidemic of gun violence in America? Will he view as unacceptable the risks Americans face when attending schools, places of worship, concerts, movie theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, sporting events and presidential rallies? It’s possible, but unlikely,” Harper said.
Harper recently called Trump’s “Black Job” she said during her infamous debate with Joe Biden last month. Harper called the term “offensive” while acknowledging that Black people are disproportionately represented in low-skill, labor-intensive jobs such as hotel housekeeping and airport baggage handling.
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