Tag: racist: jewish

Trump: Anti-Semitic Tweet Showed ‘a Sheriff’s Star,’ Not Star of David

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Donald Trump brushed off concerns Monday about possible anti-Semitic imagery in a tweet posted from his account.

The tweet, which was posted and deleted Saturday, featured a picture of Hillary Clinton on a backdrop of money next to a six-sided star that read “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” It drew widespread backlash almost immediately for resembling the Star of David, an important Jewish symbol.

After the tweet was deleted, a revised graphic was posted to Trump’s Twitter account, this time with a circle subbed in for the star.

The presumptive Republican nominee tweeted Monday:

Trump campaign adviser Ed Brookover echoed his boss, telling CNN’s “New Day” on Monday morning that there was “never any intention of anti-Semitism,” adding that Trump has denounced it in the past.

“Not every six-sided star is a Star of David,” Brookover said. “We have corrected this tweet and have moved on.”

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who is now a paid CNN commentator, pushed back against criticism on Saturday, saying the uproar was “political correctness run amok.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Donald Trump placed the blame of this controversy entirely at the feet of the media and claimed that what was tweeted out was simply just a sheriff star. However this “sheriff’s star” defense does not address the ethical and logical gaps about Trump’s controversial tweet.

First, let’s look at some sheriff stars. This is an actual 6-pointed sheriff’s star. It has rounded points.

This is a graphic clip-art of a 6-pointed sheriff’s star. It again has rounded points and is encased in a circle.

This is the Star of David. It has no circle surrounding it and has sharp points.

star-of-david

Second, there was no explanation for how the image made its way from a neo-Nazi message board to his Twitter followers. Mic.com discovered that Donald Trump’s Twitter account wasn’t the first place the meme appeared. The image was previously featured on /pol/ — an Internet message board for the alt-right, a digital movement of neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and white supremacists newly emboldened by the success of Trump’s rhetoric — as early as June 22, over a week before Trump’s team tweeted it.

The watermark on the lower-left corner of the image leads to a Twitter account that regularly tweets violent, racist memes commenting on the state of geopolitical politics. After being uncovered as the origin of the meme that Twitter user had deleted the account.

That means somebody on the Trump campaign saw the image on a white supremacist message board or Twitter account, copied the image, edited the image, and posted it to Trump’s twitter account.

Finally, as previously reported, someone in the Trump campaign noticed the symbol, voluntarily took the tweet down, and re-posted an edited meme now with a poorly photoshopped circle over the star. So someone in his campaign had to be aware of the imagery and what it could construe.

 

Trump Tweet With Star of David Draws Backlash

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Accusing rival Hillary Clinton of corruption, Donald Trump sent a controversial tweet Saturday morning, invoking a six-pointed Star of David — a well-known Jewish symbol — overlaid on piles of money.

(The original tweet has since been deleted.)

The graphic appears to be photoshopped from several different elements, including a Fox News poll that found 58 percent of voters believed Clinton to be “corrupt.” It’s juxtaposed against a photo of Clinton and a riff off her own campaign statement about making history as the first presumptive female nominee of a major party.

Next to Clinton is a red six-pointed Star of David with text reading “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” Hundred-dollar bills are scattered in the photo behind her.

It raised the eyebrows of more than a few Twitter users, several bluntly called the tweet anti-Semitic.

Trump later tweeted an amended version of the graphic, nearly two hours after the Twitter firestorm began. The latest version uses a red circle in place of the Star of David:

 

(h/t CBS News)

Reality

Trump has defended against accusations of anti-semitism and racism before.

When Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in December 2015, he tried to relate to the crowd by invoking the stereotype of Jews as talented and cunning business-people.

“I’m a negotiator, like you folks”

And when he said:

“You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” he said, adding that, “you want to control your own politician.”

 

 

Melania Trump: Reporter ‘Provoked’ Anti-Semitic Attacks

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In a long interview with GQ reporter Julia Ioffe, Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump defended her husband against a comparison between him and Adolf Hitler, argued that his campaign is about uniting the country, and a profile on her family history.

In the article Ioffe also reported that Melania has a 50-year-old half-brother, Denis Cigelnjak, whom her father has never acknowledged but who a blood test proved is his biological son.

Once the article was released, Melania wrote a Facebook post which was highly critical of Ioffe, who wrote the piece. In the post Melania engaged in the same tactics as her husband, bashing the press, claiming that there were “numerous inaccuracies” in the story about her family, but didn’t go into detail.

The article published in GQ today is yet another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting. Julia Ioffe, a journalist who is looking to make a name for herself, clearly had an agenda when going after my family.

Shortly after publishing the GQ article, Ioffe was barraged with threatening phone calls, emails, and Twitter messages. She documented many of them on Twitter, noting that she’d faced this kind of harassment before only when working as a journalist in Russia.

When asked about the backlash Ioffe had gotten for uncovering her family history, Melania said:

I don’t control my fans, but I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. She provoked them.

Julia Ioffe herself defended the piece in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month.

This is not a heavily critical article. There is nothing in it that is untrue. If this is how Trump supporters swing into action what happens when the press looks into corrupt dealings, for example, or is critical of his policies?

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Nothing Melania Trump originally said in the GQ article or the Facebook post called upon Ioffe’s Jewish heritage. It was the Trump supporters who used Ioffe’s background when directing their threats towards her. What was troubling was Melania’s nonsensical response that somehow it was Ioffe herself who provoked the anti-semitic attacks.

On one hand Melania said she didn’t agree with the anti-semitic attacks against the reporter who profiled her, then on the other hand she didn’t tell her fans to stop and placed the blame squarely on the victim.

However we can empathize with Melania Trump how she might be upset how politics brings one’s family into the public sphere. For example it must be difficult for a politician to be on the receiving end of:

Trump Stereotype Jews At Republican Jewish Forum

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When Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition, he tried to relate to the crowd by invoking the stereotype of Jews as talented and cunning business-people.

“I’m a negotiator, like you folks”

Trump said, before referencing his book “The Art of the Deal.”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?” Trump said. “Perhaps more than any room I’ve spoken to.”

The presidential candidate then predicted he would not gain the support of Jews in his bid for the White House because he is independently wealthy.

“You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” he said, adding that, “you want to control your own politician.”

Reality

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News that such remarks “made a lot of people nervous, first because he made what many viewed as an anti-Semitic joke about how all the Jews were in business … [and] he didn’t seem to know the issues.”

Other Jewish-oriented news agencies were not happy about Trump’s remarks.

The online newspaper Times of Israel called it offensive stereotyping. “Trump on Thursday invoked a series of stereotypes about Jews that are often deemed offensive and even anti-Semitic.”

The Jewish news site Forward.com called his remarks “cringe-worthy.”

However the Anti-Defamation League at the time said: “We do not believe that it was Donald Trump’s intention to evoke anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

Trump later made more missteps with the Jewish community by calling his policy “America First” which has historical significance, and tweeted out images that came from neo-Nazi websites with anti-Semitic imagery.

Ironically, Trump has many close Jewish family members. His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism in 2009 before marrying the real estate mogul Jared Kushner. Trump and Kushner raise their two children in an observant Jewish home.

Media

Links

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-kasich-donald-trump-jewish-coalition_us_56607915e4b08e945fee587c

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/back-donald-trumps-tumultuous-relationship-jewish-voters/story?id=37811413

 

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