San Francisco protest of Donald Trump’s first inauguration, January 2017. Adapted from a photo by Pax Ahimsa Gethen, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One week ago, US president Donald Trump posted a video to social media that included a depiction of former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Condemnation quickly followed, as the video was rightfully decried as blatantly racist. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially responded by telling people to get over their “fake outrage”. Several hours later, the post was removed, with the White House claiming an aide posted it without authorization. Several hours after that, Trump said he did direct aides to post the video, but hadn’t watched the entire clip ahead of time. Predictably, he has refused to apologize for the explicit racism.
