RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA

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Twelve of the first fifteen presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, were enslavers. Not until the 44th president, Barack Obama, was someone of African descent in the oval office. Items from 2008 features multiple items based in racist aspersions against Barack Obama, including ones evoking slavery. Even though he is a Christian, Islamophobic slurs proclaimed him to be secretly Muslim and all Muslims as violent terrorists. An especially virulent “birther” lie that Obama was not born in this country is one that Donald Trump helped to spread. After Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Vice President nomination, Trump questioned her citizenship status as well. Anti-Trump items target him as being racist and xenophobic, pointing to his 2016 characterization of some Mexicans crossing the border as criminal and rapist, to his Muslim ban, to his alleged reference to African and Caribbean countries as “shitholes,” and to his promise to enforce “law and order” in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. Some items point to Joe Biden’s statement that any black people who do not vote for him “ain’t Black” as racist.