Primary and Secondary Racism

I am old. I really notice the difference the past few years have wrought: still in (relatively) good shape, I am  nevertheless growing weaker. No complaints; this was and is to be expected. However, I did not expect our democracy to grow weaker along with me.

Unfortunately for us and for the world, our current president neither understands nor cares about democracy. How else can one interpret, say, his indifference to the protests to maintain freedoms which are taking place in Hong Kong?

A rational person can have no doubts about the dangers of Trump’s fondness for dictators and autocrats. Similarly, no objective person can doubt that Mr. Trump is a racist. His racism is the subject of this article, in which I introduce a new concept, secondary racism.

1. Primary Racism

This is the classic form of racism, which has plagued our country since its founding—and before—and is still present in a vehement way, albeit in a less vehement way than in the past. Racism was a key ingredient of the milk on which Uncle Sam grew up to be tall and powerful. Only relatively recently has decency taught the decent that prejudice is a sickness; those affected by it must fight for their health; those afflicted by it must fight for their rights.

Not every non-minority member, however, is aware of this disease; some, like a TB patient deliberately and joyfully coughing in a doctor’s face, even flaunt it. Trump is one of these.

His assertion that he ‘hasn’t a racist bone in his body,’ is perhaps the most egregious of the thousands of lies he has told since taking office. Here is a (partial) list of his animus against African Americans, as recounted by the late Nobel-prize winning author, Toni Morrison:

On Election Day, how eagerly had so many white voters—both the poorly educated and the well educated--embraced the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump. The candidate whose company had been sued by the Justice Department for not renting apartments to black people. The candidate who questioned whether Barack Obama had been born in the United States, and also seemed to condone the beating of a Back Lives Matter protester at a campaign rally. The candidate who kept black workers off the floors of his casinos.The candidate who is beloved by David Duke and endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.

(To this sad list I would add his having called for the death  penalty, in a full-page newspaper ad, of five minority kids who were railroaded by the police into confessing a crime they did not commit. When, years later, they were proven innocent by DNA analysis, Trump insisted that they should remain in jail because the police should never be doubted. What could be more racist than that?)

To his obvious racism against blacks, his more recent behavior has given us many examples of prejudice against browns as well. He might not have originated the crisis at the border; he has, however, made it a lot worse.

Examples abound. He has referred to Mexicans as rapists and murderers; he has attempted to build a wall separating the (mostly) white North from the (mostly) brown South. He has referred to those seeking asylum from violence and chaos in their home counties, as an “infestation;” it is no accident that the white supremacist who recently murdered and injured many in El Paso used the same term. Another example of Trump's animus against Latino immigrants is his policy of separating children from parents, which has affected many families. This cruel practice will go down in the history books, I think, along with other shameful deeds such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War ll.

It is hard to think of something more callous than the recent ICE raid in Mississippi, during which hundreds of undocumented Latinos were arrested while many of their children had no one to pick them up from school. Yes, it is hard to think of something to match this cruelty, but, knowing Trump, something worse will probably follow.

No doubt about it, Trump is a racist. But is he a secondary racist as well?

2. Secondary Racism

Before we define secondary racism, let us define the pathology of its primary practitioner.

I have no problem classifying Trump as being mentally ill, suffering from a severe personality disorder. This is not a liberal or conservative issue, or at least, it shouldn’t be. His pathology speaks and tweets for itself everywhere. The president is a classic case of narcissistic personality disorder, so severe that he and he alone has been considered by several clinicians to be a malignant narcissist. I am not a psychiatrist, but I am a physician; I am aware that one is not supposed to diagnose without a clinical examination, but Trump's is such an extreme case that the diagnosis screams out to us merely by observing his behavior.

Trump’s moral world is simple. For him, what is good is that which supports him; what is evil is what opposes him. He has stated that  a good day for him is a day  in which he trounces all opponents and comes out on top. This is one of the chief characteristics of narcissism: extreme egotism.

Another characteristic is a near-total lack of empathy. A good example of this is a photo taken during his trip to console the people of El Paso after the terrorist attack, a trip which turned out to be a debacle. It shows Trump in a photo with an infant whose parents were killed in the massacre. The infant is held by his wife, Melania, far off to the side. Trump beams at the camera, with his thumbs pointing upwards in a gesture of triumph. He shows absolutely no concern for the infant. Contrast this with the clip of Beto O’Rourke hugging a desperate man crying over his loss.

Another characteristic of narcissists is extreme neediness; the narcissist needs constant praise to cover up, at least temporarily, the desperate insecurity of his inner life. During that same visit to El Paso, Trump, instead of consoling victims, bragged about the crowd size at a recent rally.

A narcissist like Trump thinks that he is so special that he can do everything himself. This is why his White House is so chaotic; this is why Trump ignores experts.

What, then, is secondary racism? Secondary racism is selective racism used as a tool to vanquish  enemies. A good example of this is the president's severe criticism of Elijah Cummings, a black politician, who dared to vigorously protest the treatment of children at the border. Trump excoriated Cumming’s record in Baltimore, and, to boot, excoriated the city of Baltimore as well. Yes, Baltimore has its problems, but it has many advantages as well. (I have lived in Baltimore for many years.) It has a high murder rate; St. Louis’s rate, however, is even worse. Note that Trump has never criticized St. Louis, which lies, at least most of the time, in a Republican state. St. Louis has a large black population as well. That Trump singles out Baltimore and a politician who vociferously opposes him and  ignores similar or worse problems in red states, is an example of secondary racism.

Most African Americans oppose Trump; they are well aware of his primary racism. Let us now imagine a thought experiment. Imagine that blacks were as deluded about Trump as  the whites of his base are; let us imagine that he had the support of the black community. If this were so, I have no doubt that Trump’s narcissism would trump his primary racism. That people adulate him is even more important to him than the ethnicity of his adulators.

Trump characterized his undereducated white working-class supporters, before he needed them, as losers. Whoever praises him is good in his wretched book, the color of their skin, if I am correct, is less important. This I call secondary racism, extreme prejudice against any member of the human race  who opposes him.

Trump, whose malicious racism is apparent to every objective person, is mentally ill; perhaps he can’t help what he’s doing. We, however, elected him; in addition, he still has, God help us,  many supporters. What’s wrong with us?