The Trump family should really avoid any mention of the Juneteenth holiday, the commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, after Donald Trump’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests in recent days. In particular, his move to have peaceful protesters of police violence against black Americans shot with tear gas and rubber bullets by the military so that he could pose for a photo op will go down in history as one of the darkest moments of his presidency, and no one has forgotten it.
Today we celebrate #Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. In honor of today, I would like to share the story "All Different Now" by Angela Johnson, which sheds a light on the first Juneteenth through the eyes of a young girl. pic.twitter.com/ZG9zoup4yG
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) June 19, 2020
On Friday, Trump’s wife Melania tried tweeting her support of Juneteenth. This is the same woman who once fully supported her husband’s racist birtherism movement and wore a jacket to visit brown children locked in cages by her husband’s administration wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do you?’ No matter how many flowery videos the first lady films now, no one has forgotten those moments.
The history of Juneteenth is not a political football to rescue Trump’s absolutely dismal poll numbers among black Americans, nor will any amount of his wife’s or daughter’s tweets in support of the holiday make people forget that, moments before Melania issued the tweet, Trump threatened Black Lives Matter protesters planning to demonstrate outside his Tulsa rally on June 20.
The tweets and the empty sentiments highlight the cluelessness of the White House and their utterly tone deaf reaction to the greatest civil unrest the country has faced since the 1960s. Tweets will not rescue their reputation, and voters will make them feel that in November.
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
