Trump backs diversity training 3 weeks after calling it 'anti-American'

Donald Trump on Friday is unveiling a “platinum plan” for Black Americans, which includes calling for diversity training for police in the wake of a spate of police shootings of unarmed Black people.

However, just three weeks ago the Trump administration announced it was banning diversity trainings from the federal government.

“The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions,” Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought wrote in a memo on Sept. 4.

Trump himself called the diversity trainings a “sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.”

His campaign did not immediately return a request for a comment on what the new diversity trainings Trump is now calling for would entail.

However, it seems likely that its an effort to appeal to Black voters — who overwhelmingly favor Democrats, including Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

The Republican National Convention featured a number of Black speakers, though some of them said they were tricked into being featured at the convention and were upset about it.

Polls show Trump has made little to no inroads with the community since 2016, when he got 8% of the Black vote, according to exit polls at the time.

The latest national Quinnipiac poll found Trump capturing just 10% of the Black vote. And national polls have shown that voters overwhelmingly say Democratic nominee Joe Biden would be better on the issue of addressing systemic racism in the United States.

Even as Trump tries to appeal to Black voters, he continues making racist comments.

On Sept. 18, Trump announced that he wants to force states to promote “patriotic education” that is basically revisionist history that seeks to erase the United States’ sordid past when it comes to race. He also has threatened to pull funding from schools that teach using the New York Times’ 1619 project, which focuses on the consequences of slavery in America.

Trump has also been using overt racism to scare white suburban women into thinking minorities will “invade” their neighborhoods and lower their property values. Trump went on to say that Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a Black lawmaker, will help Democrats carry out an effort to “destroy suburbia” with diversification.

And after the police officers who shot Breonna Taylor — an unarmed Black woman who was sleeping in her house when she was killed — were not charged with her murder, Trump praised himself rather than make any statement about the decision.

“My message is that I love the Black community, and I’ve done more for the Black community than any other president, and I say, with a possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, and I mean that, with opportunity zones and with criminal justice reform, with prison reform, with what we’ve done for historically Black universities, colleges, schools, what we’ve done, nobody’s done more. Abraham Lincoln, let’s give him the nod, but beyond that nobody’s done more,” Trump said.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.