From News Corpse:
Trump is currently juggling multiple crises, including a raging pandemic that has already taken the lives of more than 143,000 Americans, civil unrest across the nation, economic recession and historic unemployment, and the only problems that Trump actually care about, his disintegrating public image and the approaching presidential election.
So naturally Trump has made a typically tone-deaf, self-serving, executive decision to inflame more racial animus. On Thursday morning he tweeted that…
It’s notable that Trump’s tweet attempts to appeal to an archaic demographic of “Suburban Housewives,” a degrading label that died decades ago along with anachronisms like “the little woman.” But more importantly, Trump is brazenly trying to frighten suburban women and families with thinly veiled inferences to marauding hordes of dark people moving into their exclusive neighborhoods.
Disappointing.
The article written in the Post is disappointing, but that’s not what I am talking about.
The President defaulting to trying to scare people into voting for him is disappointing and expected, but still not what I am talking about.
The disappointing thing is that there are likely a bunch of people who will read that article in the NY Post and not even bother looking up ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’. That they will just take this OPINION piece as gospel is so disappointing. I had never heard of that program, personally. And taking into consideration how the article is framed and how the President portrayed it, I had to look it up. My first reaction was ‘To what end? This sounds comically nefarious.’
Sure, enough. After ten minutes of research and reading (Mostly on HUD’s own website) I find out that, yes, of course this is just more excrement to be thrown into the spinning fan blades that is our current political discourse. It’s nothing more than a guideline for people/organizers/planners/builders that take HUD money to adhere to. Not the ‘Government’s going to stick an apartment complex in your community one night and THOSE PEOPLE will live near you’ land grab.
Disappointing.
On a side note- Personally, I think it’s a wonderful idea to mix housing like what this guideline is meant to encourage. Well-to-do families interacting with not-as-well-to-do families helps to create a foster cooperation, friendship, and community across social classes. I imagine children will grow up and be more empathetic toward people of different socioeconomic situations. I find it incredibly disappointing there’s a certain segment of our population, our President included, that want to spin this as something sinister. Especially in light of what is shown in the news today about the current administration, this whole ‘Joe Biden’s America’ tactic the Trump Campaign and its allies are spinning is rich.