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central park five
Provoke and Deny: The Obama Cartoon and Decades of Racialized Governance
The racist imagery that briefly appeared on the official feed is not a rogue error. It is consistent with an administration that has repeatedly deflected harm while avoiding responsibility.
Feb 11, 2026
On a February morning in 2026, the opening days of Black History Month, something unthinkable appeared on the official social media platform of the president of the United States: a video inserting the faces of Barack and Michelle Obama onto cartoon apes, set to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." It flashed at the end of a broader montage promoting 2020 election conspiracies and remained online for roughly 12 hours before deletion.
This was not a careless post. It tapped directly into a long, cruel lineage of racist caricature used to demean and dehumanize Black people. That this imagery came from the nation’s highest office demanded more than embarrassment, it demanded accountability. But what followed was predictable: dismissive deflection, minimization, and no consequences. The White House initially labeled criticism “fake outrage,” claimed it was “just a meme,” and then said it was “erroneously posted by a staffer.” No staffer has been named, and the president publicly declared no one would face repercussions. When pressed on an apology, he said he “didn’t make a mistake” because he had not seen the offensive portion.
Rhetoric cannot erase history. This episode, jarring as it was, is most meaningful as a mirror: It reflects a longstanding pattern of denial, obfuscation, and racialized harm that extends far beyond any single meme or social post.
Long before this video ever appeared, Donald Trump’s public life was intertwined with racial controversy. In 2011, he propelled himself into national headlines by demanding Barack Obama release his birth certificate, questioning whether the first Black president was even born in the United States. He called Obama a “foreign-born fraud,” despite clear evidence to the contrary. This birther campaign wasn’t a slip of judgment; it was a deliberate, sustained effort to delegitimize and diminish the first Black occupant of the White House—a strategy that inflamed racial distrust and energized nativist resentments across the country.
Trump’s repeated insistence that he is “not a racist” functions as a rhetorical shield. It resonates rhetorically but cannot wipe away decades of documented behavior, public statements, and the lived experiences of those harmed by policy and symbolism.
That pattern continued. In 2018, Trump reportedly referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and several African nations as “shithole countries,” expressing preference for immigrants from Norway. Such language dehumanizes entire nations and the predominantly non-white populations within them, shaping global perception and domestic attitudes alike.
The harm extends into domestic policy and public memory. In the late 1980s, during the Central Park Five case, Trump took out full‑page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers later exonerated by DNA evidence. Even after their innocence was proven, he publicly insisted on their guilt, reinforcing false narratives that fanned racial fear and distrust.
Long before he was in politics, his real estate company was sued by the US Department of Justice for discriminating against Black tenants, steering them away from apartments while offering vacancies to white applicants. The case was settled under a consent decree—but the episode underscores a pattern of exclusion that predates his political career.
Through all of this, denial has been central to the strategy. Trump routinely insists personal friendships with Black Americans prove he cannot be racist. But anecdotes do not outweigh outcomes. Leadership is not measured by denials or self‑serving narratives; it is measured by decisions, actions, and real consequences for communities.
Viewed in this light, the racist imagery that briefly appeared on the official feed is not a rogue error. It is consistent with an administration that has repeatedly deflected harm while avoiding responsibility. When damaging content appears and the response is to blame an unnamed staffer, with no transparency, no accountability, no corrective action, it signals at best a tolerance for racial insensitivity and at worst tacit acceptance of damaging narratives from the nation’s official channels.
Beyond symbolic offenses, the lived realities of millions reflect deeper injury. Immigration enforcement under the administration has subjected families from Latin America, Africa, and Asia to detention, deportation, and family separation, deterring entire communities—disproportionately people of color—from seeking healthcare, education, and legal protections. Threats to Medicare jeopardize access to care for Black, Latino, and Indigenous seniors already navigating health disparities, compounding generational inequities. Efforts to slash support for public education disproportionately affect students in underfunded schools—disproportionately Black, Latino, and Indigenous—by stripping Title I funding, free lunch programs, after‑school initiatives, and protections against discriminatory practices. Proposals to restrict the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) leave hundreds of thousands, again disproportionately people of color, struggling with food insecurity and impossible choices between rent, medicine, and nourishment.
These threads are not separate. Families impacted by immigration enforcement often rely on SNAP or local schools, all parts of a social fabric that, when weakened, frays most quickly at its most vulnerable edges.
Representation at the top matters, too. In the second Trump administration, only a handful of Black officials hold top leadership roles, including Scott Turner as Housing and Urban Development secretary and Lynne Patton in White House outreach. Most high‑level offices remain overwhelmingly white, signaling whose voices shape policy and whose perspectives are absent from critical debates.
Language and civic rituals shape how a nation understands justice, belonging, and whose histories are honored. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is more than ceremony; it is a moral touchstone. Yet this year, the administration failed to recognize the holiday officially and removed it from the federal list of free pass days in national parks, a symbolic demotion that strips public access and diminishes public commemoration. Such action may seem bureaucratic, but it is telling: When national institutions downgrade the public recognition of a civil rights icon while championing narratives that demean Black leadership, the message is clear.
Trump’s repeated insistence that he is “not a racist” functions as a rhetorical shield. It resonates rhetorically but cannot wipe away decades of documented behavior, public statements, and the lived experiences of those harmed by policy and symbolism. True leadership is not measured by denials but by accountability and moral clarity.
The Obama video, the birther attacks, the attempts to delegitimize Black leadership, the Central Park Five advertisements, the housing discrimination lawsuit, and the “shithole country” comments are not isolated incidents. They form a pattern in which racialized harm is consistently dismissed, deflected, or minimized, even as policies continue to disproportionately affect communities of color.
Moral leadership demands more than words. It demands recognition of harm, centering those most affected in decision‑making, and ensuring that power and opportunity are equitably shared. On these measures, the administration’s pattern of deflection, denial, and exclusion is a failure, one that cannot be concealed behind memes, conspiracy theories, or personal relationships. For a nation still wrestling with the legacy of race, the cost of inaction is lived, generational, and real.
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Central Park 5 Sue Trump for Defamatory Debate Comments
The suit states that the incident "was part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct toward plaintiffs stretching back decades."
Oct 21, 2024
Men wrongfully convicted of assaulting Central Park joggers in 1989 sued former U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday for recent remarks he made during a debate as the Republican nominee for the November election.
While debating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia last month, Trump "made several statements concerning the 'Central Park Five'... now also known as the Exonerated Five," states the defamation lawsuit.
The men—Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise—were ages 14 to 16 at the time of the case. After all serving time behind bars, they were finally exonerated in 2002.
During the only Trump-Harris debate of this cycle, the Democrat cited various examples of Trump's troubling history of racism. She said: "Let's remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution."
Trump said in September that "a lot of people... agreed with me on the Central Park Five," adding: "They admitted—they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty—then they pled, we're not guilty."
The new suit says that "these statements are demonstrably false. Plaintiffs never pled guilty to any crime and were subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing. Further, the victims of the Central Park assaults were not killed."
"While in police custody, plaintiffs were each separately subjected to hours of coercive interrogation, under duress, with no attorney present and often without a parent or guardian present," the filing explains. "Plaintiffs all initially denied having any knowledge of the Central Park assaults. However, after hours of interrogation, four of the Plaintiffs agreed to provide written and videotaped statements in which they falsely admitted to having been present during the assaults."
Salaam, a Democrat on the New York City Council, "attended the September 10 debate in person and was in the room when defendant Trump made his false and defamatory statements," the suit notes. In the post-debate "spin room," Salaam tried to "politely dialogue" with the ex-president, who "refused to engage."
The document emphasizes that "defendant Trump's conduct at the September 10 debate was part of a continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct toward plaintiffs stretching back decades."
As CNN reported Monday:
Trump has continued to be critical of the case as he's moved into politics in recent years. In October 2016, then-candidate Trump stood by his actions during the time of the case, telling CNN, "They admitted they were guilty."
And in 2014, Trump wrote in an op-ed in the New York Daily News that New York City's $41 million settlement with the five men was "a disgrace."
According to the suit, filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, the men are asking for "compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial, along with pre- and post-judgment interest, costs, and such other relief as the court deems just and proper."
Trump was previously found to have defamed journalist E. Jean Carroll regarding rape allegations she made against him and convicted of 34 felony charges related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election. The former president also faces ongoing state and federal cases for his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss.
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'The Sweetest Victory': Exonerated 'Central Park 5' Member Wins New York City Council Seat
"Together, we will rewrite the next chapter of our story ensuring that no one is left behind," said Yusef Salaam.
Nov 08, 2023
More than three decades after Yusef Salaam and four other Black and Latino men were wrongfully convicted of brutally assaulting a woman in New York City's Central Park, Salaam will be joining the council of the largest city in the United States following his victory in Tuesday's election.
Salaam ran unopposed after winning his Democratic primary election in District 9 in June with more than 50% of the vote, his closest competitor trailing him by 25 points.
His progressive policy platform centered housing justice including eviction prevention; economic justice; "equitable public safety measures," including investments in community programs and alternatives to incarceration; and environmental justice.
Two decades after he and the rest of the "Central Park 5" were exonerated by DNA evidence, Salaam said before the election that his opportunity to join the New York City Council, representing parts of Harlem, "means that we can really become our ancestors' wildest dreams."
Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, called Salaam's ascension to the city council "the sweetest victory" for those who grew up in New York City when the public was wrongly led to believe that the then-15-year-old was guilty of rape and saw him sent to prison for seven years.
"It says so much about the indestructible human spirit and this righteous Black man," said Nelson.
Since his exoneration, Salaam has been a poet, public speaker, and activist, calling for "criminal justice reform, prison reform and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement and capital punishment." He serves on the board of the Innocence Project and is a founder of Justice 4 the Wrongfully Incarcerated.
"Working-class voters, voters of color, and those who are disenchanted with the political process are central to our campaign," he wrote on his campaign website. "As a victim of a broken criminal justice system, I understand the challenges faced by those who are marginalized and neglected by the powers that be."
Former Republican President Donald Trump—whose daughter testified Wednesday in his civil fraud trial in Manhattan, one of several criminal and civil cases against him that are now proceeding in court—called for capital punishment for Salaam and the rest of the Central Park 5 in the 1990s, and refused to apologize for doing so nearly twenty years after their exoneration.
"Together, we will rewrite the next chapter of our story ensuring that no one is left behind," said Salaam at his victory party Tuesday evening. "We will rebuild our community with the principles of fairness, healing, and progress of the forefront of our efforts."
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