Even members of Mr. Trump’s own military appeared to take quick offense to their commander’s words. The Marine Corps commandant, General Robert B. Neller, said hours after the president spoke that racial hatred and extremism had no place in the Marines, citing its code of courage, honor and commitment.
He did not name Mr. Trump, but in a tweet wrote that there is “no place for racial hatred or extremism in @USMC. Our core values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment frame the way Marines live and act.”
.. What he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.”
But he refused to explicitly say that the killing of the young woman was a case of domestic terrorism, saying only that “you get into legal semantics.”
.. The president’s raw and emotional eruption during a news conference about infrastructure was a near-complete rejection of the more measured language about the unrest that Mr. Trump offered in his brief statement on Monday from the White House.
.. Again and again, Mr. Trump said that the portrayal of nationalist protesters in the city were not all neo-Nazis or white supremacists, and he said it was unfair to suggest that they were.
.. He said it should be “up to a local town, community” to say whether the statue of Robert E. Lee should remain in place.
The one thing Americans should be proud of after Charlottesville
It shouldn’t be difficult to stand up for tolerance and coexistence, but in fact it was too hard for many of Mr. Trump’s allies and apologists, who sought to excuse, soften, modify, justify and reinterpret his evasive initial statement about the events Saturday. Even national security adviser H.R. McMaster, widely respected as a straight-talking general, joined the ranks of Mr. Trump’s enablers.
.. But what punch do the right words pack when they are so obviously begrudging, belated and bestowed under the weight of overwhelming pressure?
.. If there is reason for hope at this dismal juncture, it is that Americans who stand on principle are recognized and extolled for having done so. By speaking truth to power, Mr. Frazier and others like him galvanized the national conversation and helped cauterize the wound inflicted by Charlottesville, at least for the moment. That, at least, should give Americans cause for pride.
Why are people still racist? What science says about America’s race problem.
The truth is that unless parents actively teach kids not to be racists, they will be,” said Jennifer Richeson, a Yale University social psychologist. “This is not the product of some deep-seated, evil heart that is cultivated. It comes from the environment, the air all around us.”
“When you arrive at a new high school. You are instinctively trying to figure out who’s cool, who’s not, who’s a nerd, who gets beat up? Kids quickly acquire these associations,” she said.
.. even with a TV show on mute displaying scenes with no explicit discrimination, the nonverbal body language of black and white actors interacting was enough to cause watchers to test higher for implicit bias afterward.
.. “An us-them mentality is unfortunately a really basic part of our biology,”
.. “There’s a lot of evidence that people have an ingrained even evolved tendency toward people who are in our so-called ‘in group.’”
.. White supremacist groups promote a “siege mentality” among their followers, Knowles said — rhetoric that aims to lend legitimacy to people’s racial and ethnic fears. He pointed to the slogans shouted by participants in the Charlottesville rally: “You will not replace us” and “White Lives Matter.”
.. one thing that these violent ideologies are communicating to people, and people are receptive to, especially people who are struggling, is that whites are actually the ones who are being discriminated against in society,”
.. But to challenge the deep-seated prejudices that shape our behavior, to unlearn our implicit biases, “we need contact,” he said.
.. “It’s absolutely the opposite of what white nationalists want, which is a segregated society,” he said. “We need an integrated society, and at the same time need to create as much socioeconomic fairness as we can
.. “There’s data that shows young groups like millennials are more progressive and egalitarian. But that’s usually on issues like climate change or gay marriage, usually not in their level of implicit bias,”
.. it’s simply not true that we just need to wait for the few old racist men left in the South to die off and then we’ll be fine.
Trump Condemns Violence in Charlottesville, Saying ‘Racism Is Evil’
Several of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, including his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, pressed Mr. Trump to issue a more forceful rebuke after his comment on Saturday that the violence in Charlottesville was initiated by “many sides,” prompting nearly universal criticism.
.. As Mr. Trump was delivering the kind of statement his critics had demanded over the weekend, Fox News reported that the president is considering pardoning former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a political ally accused of federal civil rights violations for allegedly mistreating prisoners, many of them black and Hispanic.
.. “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” Mr. Frazier said in a tweet announcing he was stepping down from the panel. Mr. Frazier is one of just a handful of black chief executives of a Fortune 500 company.
Less than hour later, Mr. Trump, responded on social media as he departed his golf resort in Bedminster for a day trip back to Washington.
.. Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!
.. Trump would rather attack a principled black man who was formerly on his own team than condemn white supremacy.The Donald is no longer just a white supremacist sympathizer — he’s positioned himself as their proud leader. Racist-in-Chief.Trump publicly and directly expresses disapproval over ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING that bothers him, even stuff as petty as SNL.With his insane rant this morning attacking former ally Ken Frazier, Trump is officially the Alt-Right’s attack dog.This isn’t about prescription drug prices. It’s about POTUS being insecure & disgustingly getting the validation he needs from hate groups... It’s not unusual for Mr. Trump to attack, via Twitter, any public figure who ridicules, criticizes or even mildly questions his actions. But his decision to take on Mr. Frazier, a self-made multimillionaire who rose from a modest childhood in Philadelphia to attend Harvard Law School, was extraordinary given the wide-ranging criticism he has faced from both parties for not forcefully denouncing the neo-Nazis and Klan sympathizers who rampaged in Charlottesville... “It took Trump 54 minutes to condemn Merck CEO Ken Frazier, but after several days he still has not condemned murdering white supremacists,”