Trump's efficacy as an ambassador of unrepentant white innocence, and ignorance, and privilege, doesn't depend on whether his personal racial views add up to bigotry. What he's done in public will suffice to pass judgment. Trump's political popularity took off when he sullied the citizenship of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. The "birther" claims were driven by unwarranted skepticism about the place of Obama's birth and the status of his birth certificate. Trump's recent assertion that Obama is an American still rang false and appeared as little more than an attempt to deflect responsibility for his vicious views onto his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. His admission that he said Obama was born in America to keep his campaign going was a moment of ruthless honesty that sealed the case.
-- Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop, p. 109-110
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