Donald Trump Endorsement From Black Pastors Isn’t Happening, Press Conference Cancelled
It seems that Donald Trump isn’t getting the reception he hoped to receive from black pastors, CNN reports.
A couple of days ago, several media outlets reported that Trump was scheduled to meet with a group of influential pastors in the African American community and receive their endorsement.
“On Monday, Mr. Trump will host an informational meet and greet with many members of the Coalition of African American Ministers.” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Sunday. “This is not a press event, but a private meeting, after which, a number of attendees are expected to endorse Mr. Trump’s campaign for President.”
Today, the claims that Trump will receive their endorsement are being downplayed and even denied by the black pastors who have been invited to the meeting.
“I was asked 2 meet with Mr Trump too but I refused because until he learns how to respect people you can’t represent me thru my endorsement,” the founder of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, Bishop Paul S. Morton tweeted.
Bishop Morton isn’t the only black pastor who seems completely against a Trump endorsement.
“Trump is an insult and embarrassment. But he represents the country we have become,” wrote Bishop Corletta Vaughn, Senior Pastor of The Holy Ghost Cathedral and one of the stars of the Oxygen reality series, Preachers of Detroit wrote on Facebook. “ZERO experience… Flaunting a ticket of unbridled bigotry, sexism, racism and everything that is wrong with America.”
She added that she was invited to the meeting but will not be attending.
Some of the black pastors also say that the purpose of the event may have been misrepresented in the media.
“The meeting was presented not as a meeting to endorse but a meeting to engage in dialogue,” Bishop Clarence McClendon, a pastor based in Los Angeles wrote on Facebook.
According to CNN, the Trump campaign said in its press release that the meeting was, “a coalition of 100 African American Evangelical pastors and religious leaders who will endorse the GOP frontrunner after a private meeting at Trump Tower.”
However, a planned press conference where the black pastors were expected to join and potentially endorse Trump has been cancelled.
The Trump campaign has not been doing much to endear itself to the African American community and other racial minorities in America.
Last week, a Black Lives Matter protester was violently ejected from a Donald Trump campaign rally in Alabama. As CNN reports, videos from the event showed that the protestor, Mercutio Southall Jr, was kicked and shoved as he was escorted out of the event.
Donald Trump later said that Southall’s treatment was justified.
“@SeanSean252: @WayneDupreeShow @Rockprincess818 @CheriJacobus pic.twitter.com/5GUwhhtvyN”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2015
The Trump campaign also received a lot of backlash when the Donald tweeted some wildly inaccurate crime statistics that portrayed African Americans in a negative light. The infographic features an illustration of a black youth wielding a handgun and claims that 97 percent of blacks were killed by other blacks in 2015 and that only 16 percent of whites were killed by other whites this year.
But as The Atlantic reports, this is incorrect.
The FBI, who is responsible for the collection and analysis of crime statistics, states in its 2014 report that 82 percent of whites are killed by other whites, while 90 percent of blacks are killed by other blacks. So the gap between homicide rates isn’t as vast as the infographic tweeted by Trump suggested. There’s a caption on the infographic that states that the information was sourced from the Crime Statistics bureau of San Francisco. According to The Atlantic, The San Francisco Police has denied that a bureau with that name exists.
These actions are more than likely the main reasons why black pastors are reluctant to endorse Donald Trump for President.
“By siding with a presidential candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes Black people, what message are you sending to the world about the Black lives in and outside of your congregations?” an op-ed written in Ebony Magazine by pastors, seminary professors and Christian activists asked. “Which Black lives do you claim to be liberating?”
[Photo by Ian MacNichols/Getty Images]
