Thumbnail: Donald Trump’s latest dog whistle with its underlying implications about the threats to the suburbs by Black and brown people fails on the facts: people of color are making up more and more of the suburbs and life goes on.
***
There seems to be no limit to the bigoted dog whistles – can we even call them whistles anymore – that are generated by President Donald Trump, the latest linking low-income housing to crime and poor property values in the suburbs where housewives (his word, not mine) are cowering from the threat to their lives from Black Lives Matter and brown and Black people..
It’s one more instance of his enflaming fear and racial division among white suburban voters in service of his reelection ambitions. He tweeted that “all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream…will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood…People fight all of their lives to get into the suburbs and have a beautiful home.”
It’s all part of the desperation that leads him to charge that Democrats, specifically, former vice-president Joe Biden, will “abolish the suburbs,” whatever that means.
Mr. Trump clearly has an outdated understanding of suburbs, thinking they are lily-white bastions fearful of inner city residents.
To give you an idea of how outdated this is, just consider our own suburbs and the trend lines showing an increase in the percentage of the population that is African American. :
Collierville:
2000 – 7.18%
2010 – 10.85%
2019 – 12.4%
Bartlett:
2000 – 5.96%
2010 – 16.06%
2019 – 20.8%
Lakeland:
2000 – 5.05%
2010 – 9.36%
2019 – 11.7%
Germantown:
2000 – 2.32%
2010 – 3.57%
2019 – 2.2%
Arlington:
2000 – 24.81%
2010 – 13.84%
2019 – 17.4%
Millington:
2000 – 22.87%
2010 – 25.65%
2019 – 25.1%
Southaven:
2000 – 6.91%
2010 – 22.16%
2019 – 25.3%
Horn Lake:
2000 – 10.28%
2010 – 32.86%
2019 – 42.8%
Olive Branch:
2000 – 11.29%
2010 – 23.12%
2019 – 30.8%
DeSoto County:
2000 – 11.4%
2010 – 21.87%
2019 – 30.1%
**
Join us at the Smart City Memphis Facebook page for daily articles, reports, and commentaries relevant to Memphis.
