“Richard Spencer, the 39-year-old white nationalist leader, said Monday that he did not take President Donald Trump’s statement denouncing hate groups seriously, and two of Spencer’s associates shared a somewhat similar sentiment with HuffPost. “The statement today was more Kumbaya nonsense,” Spencer said, speaking to reporters in his office and part-time home in Alexandria, Virginia. ‘He sounded like a Sunday school teacher. I just don’t take him seriously … it sounded so hollow and vapid.'”

Source: Dana Liebelson. “White Nationalist Calls Trump’s Denouncement of Hate Groups ‘Kumbaya Nonsense.'” The Huffington Post. August 14, 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-nationalist-calls-presidents-denouncement-of-hate-groups-kumbaya-nonsense_us_59923778e4b09096429961e8.

“When a white person kills a black man in America, the killer often faces no legal consequences. In one in six of these killings, there is no criminal sanction, according to a new Marshall Project examination of 400,000 homicides committed by civilians between 1980 and 2014. That rate is far higher than ones for homicides involving other combinations of races.”

Source: Anna Flagg and Daniel Lathrop. “Killings of Blacks by Whites Are Far More Likely To Be Rules ‘Justifiable.'” The New York Times. August 14, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/upshot/killings-of-blacks-by-whites-are-far-more-likely-to-be-ruled-justifiable.html.

“President Donald Trump, in a staggering, impromptu news conference in New York on Tuesday, blamed the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend on both sides of the conflict — equating the white supremacists on one side with the “alt-left” on the other side — after his top White House aides spent days trying to clean up after Trump’s initial vague response to the violence. The news conference laid bare his unvarnished view of who was to blame for the violence and what he thinks about the nationwide effort to remove statues of Confederate leaders. Trump’s comments were the latest in what has been a jaw-dropping saga ever since the President made his first vague statement on the violence, blaming the conflicts on “many sides.” The comments also made clear that Trump’s speech on Monday — which vociferously blamed the violence on the ‘alt-right’ and neo-Nazi groups who initiated the protest — was largely a sterilized version of his view. ‘I think there is blame on both sides,’ Trump said during a contentious back-and-forth with reporters in the lobby of his Midtown Manhattan building.”

Anyone that defends white supremacists, the KKK and Nazi-supporters are definitely fulfilling the promise of “mak[ing] America great again.” What a disgrace!

Source: Dan Merica. “Trump Says Both Sides To Blame Amid Charlottesville Backlash.” CNN. August 16, 2017. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/15/politics/trump-charlottesville-delay/index.html.

“White House officials, under siege over President Trump’s reluctance to condemn white supremacists for the weekend’s bloody rallies in Charlottesville, Va., tried to clarify his comments on Sunday, as critics in both parties intensified demands that he adopt a stronger, more unifying message. A statement on Sunday — issued more than 36 hours after the protests began — condemned “white supremacists” for the violence that led to one death. It came in an email sent to reporters in the president’s traveling press pool, and was attributed to an unnamed representative. It was not attributed directly to Mr. Trump, who often uses Twitter to communicate directly on controversial topics. It also did not single out ‘white supremacists’ alone but instead included criticism of ‘all extremist groups.'”

Source: “White House Acts to Stem Fallout From Trump’s First Charlottesville Remarks.” The New York Times. August 13, 2017. https://nyti.ms/2uThGRq