In an effort to sway black voters to back Donald Trump, legendary boxing promoter Don King called the GOP presidential nominee the “doctor of humanness,” and then he dropped the n-word Wednesday in a predominantly black church in his hometown of Cleveland. Trump looked on with a smile.
Delivering a freewheeling and at times bizarre speech at a campaign event at New Spirit Revival Center, King made the case for why the African-American community should vote for the New York real estate mogul in November.
“America needs Donald Trump. We need Donald Trump, especially black people. Because you’ve got to understand, my black brothers and sisters, they told me, ‘You’ve got to try to emulate and imitate the white man and then you can be successful,’” King said.
“So we tried that ... I told Michael Jackson, I said if you’re poor, you’re a poor negro. I would use the n-word,” he continued. “But if you’re a rich, you’re a rich negro, if you are intelligent, you’re an intellectual negro. If you’re a dancing and sliding and gliding n****r, I mean negro ― you’re a dancing and sliding and gliding negro. So dare not alienate because you cannot assimilate. You know, you’re going to be a negro till you die.”
King, the controversial promoter who worked with boxing greats such as Muhammad Ali, said Trump believes in equality for all.
“The white woman and the slave ― the people of color ― those are the left-outs,” he said. “Trump says no. He wants everyone to have rights.”
Taking the lectern after King, whom he praised as being “inspiring,” Trump claimed he is “winning” in a number of battleground states, thanked former primary rival Ben Carson, who was seated behind him, and continued his outreach to African-American voters.
“We’re all brothers and sisters and we’re all created — all, everyone — by the same God,” Trump said, while reading off a sheet of paper. “I fully understand that the African-American community has suffered from discrimination and many wrongs must be made right.”
Asked in a follow-up Q&A what he would do to resolve racial tensions in light of this week’s police-involved shootings of African-American men in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump said simply that law enforcement has to get “better and better and better.”
Trump is polling at near zero with African-American voters in most surveys, despite promising to “fix” the nation’s inner cities in a pitch to blacks he sums up with one question ― “What have you got to lose?”
Speaking at a rally in Kenansville, North Carolina, Tuesday night, Trump again stumbled in an apparent attempt to endear himself to black voters by claiming that blacks in America “are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before ― ever, ever ever.”
Trump could surely think of some worse times. The Department of Justice sued the real estate mogul in 1973 for discriminating against blacks in housing applications.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularlyincitespolitical violence and is a
Before You Go
