He recently spoke with the book editor of the Tampa Bay
Times to discuss the presidency of Donald Trump and continuing problem of
racism in America.
From the Tampa Bay Times:
You published Stamped From the Beginning during the
administration of President Barack Obama. Now Donald Trump is president. Given
your historical perspective, were you surprised by Trump’s election, and were
you surprised by the resurgence of openly white supremacist ideas that followed
it?
I wasn’t surprised by Trump. My book is a chronicle of the
dual history of how racist progress always follows racial progress. If Obama
embodies racial progress, as most people thought he did, then the presumption
would be that Trump embodies racist progress.
As for the resurgence of white supremacist groups, they had been resurging for years. Ever since Obama’s election they had been growing to record levels. Trump, fairly early in his administration, calling them "good people" just gave them more political space.
How would you respond to people who are surprised by Trump’s
election, who wonder how it happened?
Even before Obama’s election we saw that people of color and
young people got involved in politics and then came out to vote in
extraordinarily large numbers. It broadened American democracy. The reaction to
that was a new wave of voter suppression that I would argue played a role in
Trump’s election.
Read the full interview here.