Culture

Trump Uses The Chicago Murder Of Dwyane Wade’s Cousin As An Example Of Why Blacks Should Vote For Him

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On Friday, Nykea Aldridge (cousin of the Chicago Bulls’ new addition, Dwyane Wade) was shot and killed on Chicago’s south side near an elementary school. She had been pushing a baby stroller with a male companion when two other men approached and opened fire on Aldridge’s companion. Aldridge was struck in the head and arm and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Wade took to Twitter and condemned “another act of senseless gun violence.”

This isn’t the first time that Wade’s family has dealt with gun violence. In 2012, his nephew, Darin Johnson, was struck when two men began shooting in a convenience store. Darin sustained two bullet wounds to his leg and was lucky to survive, unlike another store patron and unlike Aldridge on Friday.

Well, Donald Trump decided use this tragedy as part of his minority outreach initiative. Despite his checkered history with “The Blacks,” Trump is convinced that he can woo black voters. And he’s been doing so by insulting them as a community that only Trump can save from poverty, joblessness, and violence: “What do you have to lose?” Trump claims he will do much good that he’ll win “95 percent” of the black vote in 2020. Whereas he fingers Hillary Clinton as the real “bigot” because “she sees people of color only as votes.”

And yet, when Aldridge was killed in Chicago, Trump rushed to scoop up the black vote by tweeting, “Dwayne Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”

Trump soon deleted that tweet and added a second one, not to alter the content but to correct the misspelling of Wade’s name.

As one can imagine, Trump sparked a firestorm with these tweets. A large portion of his replies revealed outrage, but Senior National Correspondent for MTV News Jamil Smith really took Trump to task in a series of tweets. Smith typed that he’d “seen many politicians exploit us. Never seen someone do it this crudely.” And that wasn’t all he had to say about Trump.

(Via Chicago Tribune)

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