At The Root,
Steven A. Crockett reported,
"Secret Service agents, per Trump’s request, escorted about 30 black
students out of a Trump rally at Valdosta State University in Georgia because,
apparently, their presence at his event made him uncomfortable. Didn’t matter
that they were students at the school where he was speaking or that if elected
president, he would also be their president, too. Or, that until 1963, the
university was a whites-only campus."
"I think we got
kicked out because we're a group of black people," said a tearful student
in an interview with USA
Today. "I guess...they're afraid we're going to say something or
do something, but we just really wanted to watch the rally."
VSU
students being kicked out for absolutely NO reason before Donald Trump makes
his presence. pic.twitter.com/bOwnwvCkuN
— High OCT8NE.
(@UGWavy__) February 29,
2016
Video
from inside Trump rally of students led out from bleachers. Courtesy Kiebbler
Carter, 22, who wasn't removed. pic.twitter.com/Ubmjq492DL
— Jennifer Jacobs
(@JenniferJJacobs) March 1, 2016
"They said, 'This
is Trump’s property; it’s a private event.' But I paid my tuition to be
here," a student told the newspaper.
The real estate
mogul's campaign made further headlines on Monday for a Secret Service member's
violent tackling of a TIME photographer at a separate rally in
Virginia.
The photographer,
Chris Morris, had stepped outside of a designated press pen in order to
photograph Black Lives Matter protesters, Morris told CNN. TIME published a
GIF of the incident, in which Morris can be seen being choked and slammed into
a table.
The Trump campaign
denied responsibility for both events, in separate statements to USA
Today and CNN.
The mass-removal of
black students and tackling of the TIME photographer took
place only a day after Trump refused to
disavow former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who endorsed Trump's
candidacy over the weekend.
"Donald Trump’s
statements this morning are just the latest in a string of incidents where he
has used his massive media presence, especially his Twitter account with over 6
million followers, to elevate extremist ideas and individuals," said
Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich in a response to
Trump's reluctance to distance himself from the KKK.
Beirich continued,
"Despite being called out by journalists and organizations like the
Southern Poverty Law Center, these incidents continue. Condemning David Duke
and the Ku Klux Klan at every opportunity should be the easiest thing anyone
can do. The hatefulness of their ideas and actions are well-established and
should be denounced forcefully by all responsible political leaders."
Commentators have also
drawn a connection between Trump's racist
attitudes toward minorities, such as his calls to "build a
wall" between the U.S. and Mexico and his condemnation of all American
Muslims, and the discovery that Trump's father, Fred Trump, was arrested
at a KKK rally in 1927. The technology blog Boing
Boing uncovered the
family link last September.
And despite events
such as these and the desperate
efforts of Republican Party insiders to keep him from taking
the nomination, Trump continues to maintain a comfortable
lead in the polls.
