MITCHELL: Trump won’t win black support playing on white fears

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CLEVELAND — Donald J. Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, accepted his party’s nomination playing to the most common of white fears.

Crime.

Trump cited Chicago’s gun fatalities since President Barack Obama took office in 2008 to make a point that homicides are out-of-control.

“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities,” Trump said.

“I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored,” Trump added.

“The attacks on our police and the terrorists of our cities threaten our very way of life.”

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A politician’s worst nightmare is being accused of being soft on crime.

“There can be no prosperity without law and order,” he said.

“In our nation’s capitol, homicides have been up 50 percent, and in the president’s hometown of Chicago more than 2,000 people have been victims of shootings,” Trump said. “Almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since the president took office.”

What he didn’t acknowledge is that America has a proliferation of illegal guns flooding urban communities. In some areas, the gun violence has been so devastating, it is difficult to find a household where someone hasn’t been touched by it.

Trump gave speaking slots to several prominent African-Americans, but it was the tough-talking Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.’s dissing of the Black Lives Matter movement that had delegates jumping to their feet.

A walk around the Quicken Loans Arena, where the Republican National Convention was held, confirms the Trump campaign has a huge problem going into the November election.

Despite Trump’s assertion that he “joined the political arena so the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves,” African-Americans continue to shun his campaign.

Of the 2,472 delegates, only 18 were black, according to the Washington Post. In some recent polls, Trump was found to have 0 percent African-American support. Additionally, a recent expose by the Post asserts that Trump has been involved in racial controversies over four decades.

Bruce LeVell, chairman of Trump’s National Diversity Coalition, said Trump is being unfairly stereotyped as “racist.”

But that’s a tough sell when the first thing Trump said he is going to do is “liberate” citizens from violence without uttering one word about the young black men who have been killed unjustly by police.

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