After Donald Trump’s disastrous press conference Tuesday, the personal attorney of the president posted a series of pictures of himself posing with Black people.
In a presser intended to cover infrastructure, Trump delivered off the cuff remarks in which he created a false equivalence between White terrorist groups and people fighting against extremism. Minimizing the deadly violence that took place at the weekend’s Unite the Right rally, Trump claimed that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
A day later, Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen tweeted “as the son of a holocaust survivor, I have no tolerance for #racism. Just because I support @POTUS @realDonaldTrump doesn’t make me racist.”
To bring the point home, he supported his statement with a photo collage consisting entirely of Black people.
Among the individuals in the photos were Trump surrogates and supporters, like Omarosa Manigault and conservative video bloggers Diamond and Silk.
If Cohen was aiming to deflect potential criticism of his association with Trump, he did just the opposite. His visual depiction of the “I’m not racist, I have Black friends” quip not only appears defensive, but it is illogical.
Posing with individual Black people does not eliminate the far-reaching, destructive policies promised by the Trump administration in housing, education, and policing that will disproportionately harm people of color.