The FRONTLINE Interviews

Christina Greer

Author, Black Ethnics

Christina Greer is an associate professor of political science at Fordham University and the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Gabrielle Schonder on July 2, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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Trump and the Central Park Five

1989, New York.Rudy Giuliani, this is his first race as mayor.About two weeks after, a group of young men are arrested for attacking a jogger in New York City.Donald Trump runs a full-page ad in several New York City papers.Can you give me a sense of why he wades into that controversy, how he does it?

Right.So we have to back up just a little bit because in 1989, it’s not just five teenagers who are accused of attacking a jogger.It’s five Black and Latinx teenagers who are accused of attacking a white female jogger.So knowing the backstory of the United States and the fear mongering that has always existed about Black men coming to—coming to attack sort of pure white women, it feeds into this larger historical myth and narrative that is used oftentimes by people who like to sow fear based on race-baiting.

And so Donald Trump at the time is emerging as a real estate magnate, you know.He’s coming out of the shadow of his father; he’s coming out of the shadow of Queens.And if you know anything about New York City, the outer boroughs never got the same respect as, say, Manhattan.And so this was yet another attempt for him to try and solidify himself as not just a leader, but a thought leader.

And we know, for those of us who have lived in New York for a long time, Donald Trump has always had a particular racialized attitude about particular racial and ethnic groups…He’s been on record saying things about Black people, on how they’re not fit to live in his buildings; he and his father had been sued by the federal government for doing so.And there’s a certain level of criminality that he associates with Black and Latinx people, writ large.

So this was a perfect storm for him to try and insert himself into a very tense time in the city.You have Rudy Giuliani, who is trying to make a citywide name for himself.We know that the tensions between Rudy Giuliani and his mayoral opponent, David Dinkins, were incredibly racially tinged, as they said at the time, because David Dinkins was building a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious coalition, and Rudy Giuliani was using sort of race baiting and white ethnic politics and fear mongering to try and win that election, which he was not successful in 1989, but he was successful in 1993.

So we have that backdrop, and then Donald Trump wanting to insert himself to say, “We need to just execute these people.”No law, no courts, no justice.The only way that we can be safe as, you know, the real New Yorkers—and what he ultimately usually says later on is the real Americans who deserve safety—is to just execute these five young men, who were all under the age of 21 at the time.

And so that’s the backdrop, then, so that when he runs for the presidency—keep in mind he’s had 11 years on NBC coming into Americans’ living rooms as someone who is successful, largely due to editing; as someone who has run successful businesses, plural; as someone who’s a strong manager.This is all editing, right?Edited out the racial comments; we’ve edited out the sexist comments; we’ve edited out the comments that he’s made about people’s weight or religion.

And so he has a head start with essentially good PR.But for those of us who remember the race baiting in New York, the racist full-page ads in New York City newspapers, the fact that his father, that he and his father were sued by the federal government [for] putting C’s on Black applicants’ applications when they were trying to rent in his buildings, when he came down that gold escalator and he called Mexicans rapists, that was not surprising to many people who know the history of Donald Trump and how he views people of color.¹

Washington Post: Inside the government’s racial bias case against Donald Trump’s company, and how he fought it

Trump’s Early Political Moves

He had dipped his toe into running for president in ’87.So when he runs the ads two years after, do you think he has national politics on the mind when he weighs in and weighs in via a racial controversy in New York City?

Well, I mean, this is someone who hasn’t really ever had to fully think through a lot of his planning because for quite some time—keep in mind, for several decades—no matter what Donald Trump did, whether it was a success, but oftentimes it was a failure, his father was there to bail him out.And so I think lots of men in America have delusions of grandeur, who think that they should and could be in charge.There is a reason why we have not run the country as a business in the past.There’s a reason why we have not chosen failed businessmen in the past.But we know that, fast-forward several years later, many presidential historians argue that it’s the moment that Barack Obama embarrasses him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where everyone’s laughing at him—not laughing with him, but laughing at him—based on a joke that Obama has made directly to Donald Trump where it really solidified that he should try this once again.

And he picked a moment in American history because the racial pendulum had swung back.So we know that with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, so many people were so eager to say we’re post-racial without ever having to do the racial reckoning that we’re experiencing in 2020.And so knowing the history of the United States, knowing the history of white supremacy, knowing the history of anti-Black racism, knowing the history of patriarchy, knowing the history of capitalism, and I’d argue racial capitalism, all encapsulated perfectly in a man like Donald Trump, that racial pendulum swung from Barack Obama naturally to a candidate like Donald Trump.

And because the Republican Party did not take him seriously during the presidential primary for the Republican primary, you had 17 members of the Republican Party on stage and Donald Trump systematically picking them off one by one based on bullying, because this was not a campaign process that they were accustomed to.And they didn’t take him seriously, so the vetting wasn’t there.We still have not seen his taxes.We don’t know much about sort of any of his policies.We didn’t ask him the questions that other candidates quite frankly had been asked several times.

And so here we are in a circumstance that many people did not believe that we as a nation could ever get there.I did.As a Black American, I definitely knew that this was a possibility.

'The Apprentice'

Let me fast-forward to The Apprentice.I’m wondering if you can help us understand what the show did for him, what the boardroom specifically sort of did for him, how it paved the way to enter the 2016 race.

So when we think about The Apprentice and the editing that was done in The Apprentice—for anyone who’s ever made television or spent a little time looking behind the scenes as to how television is made, especially reality television, we know that there are hundreds of hours of footage, and it is edited in a way that we can create villains and we can create heroes, right?We have 25 years now of sort of starting with The Real World and going all the way through, you know, The Bachelor and Survivor and you name it.But The Apprentice was very important because when you see Donald Trump at the head of the boardroom, you know, with his trusted advisers, but he seems rational, he seems decisive, he seems thoughtful and thought-provoking, he seems creative, he seems like a leader.And what we find out, well after the fact, is that all of that was editing, right?

We have women who have had to sign NDAs based on sexual misconduct and those types of comments and bad behavior on behalf of Donald Trump.We have former Black contestants saying that, you know, he was very just inappropriate with his worldview of Black people… and he had a very specific idea of who is successful and what success looks like based on people’s religious affiliation or ethnicity or racial categorization.

And so if you have over a decade, though, of an image that is crafted for prime-time television on network TV—this isn’t cable—on network television, that shows someone who has common sense, who has empathy—at times, right?—but who is a real leader and successful, right?We see his name plastered on multiple buildings.The show doesn’t talk about how he doesn’t own the buildings and they’re just leasing the name because it means something for real estate.The show doesn’t show the behind-the-scenes where he’s erratic and pouting and shouting and not fully in control of any situation.

And so, unfortunately, you had across all 50 states and the globe many people feeling as though this is someone who’s here to shake up the system.He’s not from Washington, D.C. And maybe it’s a good thing that we have someone who’s not a lifelong senator or a governor, which is smart, though, and is very successful and can come in and lead.We know now it’s a fact that was not the case, and that is not the case.

The 'Access Hollywood' Tape

I want to ask you about the reality-show education that he comes away from the show with and if we can apply it to a particular crisis on the campaign, which is the Access Hollywood tape and that weekend.What lessons from reality TV does he bring to that experience? ...

Well, with the Access Hollywood tape, I mean, this is what’s so fascinating about the president.We’ve seen even during his governance as president, he does not apologize.And even if you’ve seen something with your own eyes and you know it to be true, he just says that it’s not, and he’ll continue to say it until you start to question whether or not you saw what you saw, right?

So Billy Bush apologized and was promptly fired.Donald Trump says, I mean, I don’t know: “Well, it’s locker room talk.Everybody does it.” ...

And so this Teflon that he has around him is because, with a bullying attitude—we also have to be honest that many men and some women liked the fact that he’s essentially—he framed it as, “I’m a take-charge person.As president, I’m not going to work with leaders the way Barack Obama did.I’m not going to, you know, sit at a table and negotiate with people.If I want something, I just take it.That’s how I’m successful as a businessman and other areas.”And there are many Americans who were fine with that.

So there’s something about an anti-Obama sentiment that Donald Trump is keenly aware of.And as someone who’s been in the television and multimedia industry for 40 years—because it’s not just television.Keep in mind, he was able to control print, right?He was on television for over a decade…So social media he’s very good at, and we know that the conservatives have pretty much a much larger share of talk radio than liberals, and so he’s been able to get his messaging out through the radio.

So television, internet and social media, print and radio.So he understands media in a way that many candidates just don’t.And he’s willing to just put it out there.And as long as you don’t have to apologize, and as long as you lower the bar, such that if you make a gaffe, the president makes a gaffe, it’s, “Well, you know, that’s just how he is.”If anyone makes a gaffe, it’s a one-week/two-week story.So he understands how media is.And that’s how he’s also run his presidency and his administration.

So someone just asked how many times has the president said, “Oh, that’s a great question you have; we’ll let you know in two weeks—stay tuned,” right?Literally, “Stay tuned.”So we are on the edge of our seats as American citizens constantly wondering, what will tomorrow bring?What will tomorrow’s episode in the presidency of Donald Trump bring for us, right?

… So we are living in a version of the reality because the media stays tuned; social media stays tuned.The television, as much as he talks about, you know, cable news shows, but he watches them constantly, and they watch him constantly.Print journalism, although it’s dying, still is kept alive by writing about these stories.And talk radio is alive and well because lots of people want to talk about the president and voice their opinions.

The Lafayette Square Photo Op

I’m going to jump to a moment that felt a bit of reality show, but I wonder if you can help understand the seriousness of it, which is Lafayette Square and his decision to push back protesters, walk across the street to St. John’s Church.Take me there.What’s going on?What lessons is he bringing to that moment?

Right.So when Barack Obama was president, many people feared we would have this racial uprising, you know, Blacks versus whites or Blacks and their allies versus, you know, good white people.And that didn't happen.But because of the consistent, I would argue, racist rhetoric of the president, we’ve reached a boiling point.And in Washington, D.C., we have to remember, Washington, D.C., is not a state.We have 50 states plus the District of Columbia.And so there are different rules.And Washington, D.C., also has a Black female mayor, which the president has been very clear to use language about lawlessness.D.C. is also a majority African American city.

… Now, mind you now, I’m 15th-generation American, Donald Trump is second, if that gives you any context of who real Americans are, right, if we even want to play that game, which I don’t.But he has a very specific idea of who the real deserving Americans are.And that means white Americans, right?That's a proxy for whiteness.

And so when we’re in Lafayette Square and he sees that people are angry, angry not just at him but angry at what he’s exposed about our nation, not just domestically but internationally—and he likes a show of force.As the executive, you are the commander in chief; you are in charge of all the branches of the armed forces.And Donald Trump is not afraid to use that.

So when Donald Trump decides to walk a few blocks to a church and hold up an upside-down Bible, and essentially use this backdrop of religiosity to essentially position himself as “I’m a Christian, and these people are lawless un-Christians,” that’s for a specific audience.That’s for his base.That’s for evangelicals.That’s for people who are scared that they’re seeing unrest and uprisings in the street.But it isn’t from a sense of wanting to unify the nation; it’s a sense of wanting to calcify the support that he has from his base so that they can possibly take up arms in support of him.

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