by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
It appears that Donald Trump just won’t give up. In an interview this week with the Associated Press, “The Donald” said that President Obama was a poor student who didn’t deserve to be admitted to Harvard University. Trump doesn’t actually have proof of his assertions, but that’s never stopped him before.
"I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump said to the Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."
The problem with Trump’s statements are numerous, but let’s start with at least a couple. First, Trump has little moral high ground when it comes to critiquing the intellectual capabilities of Obama or anyone else. As the son of a multi-millionaire, Trump was able to ice skate through life’s terrain, being thrust almost immediately to the top of the real estate game by his father.
Secondly, the evidence in President Obama’s background is quite the contrary to what Trump is saying in public. From what I understand, the Harvard Law Review doesn’t choose unqualified students as its president. In fact, they tend to choose students who are among the best of the best. By being the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, President Obama was effectively “the best of the best of the best,” since we all know that being the first black person to achieve almost anything usually means your road is tougher than most.
So, the billionaire who inherited his success from his father has virtually no right or ability to criticize a black man who has jumped one major hurdle after another in order to achieve things that were once thought to be impossible. What I love the most about Trump’s criticism of Obama is that he’s making the Republican party look silly. As one of the leading Republican presidential candidates, “The Donald” is using this precious opportunity to spend all of his time wondering where President Obama was born and discussing other issues that Americans don’t seem to care much about. This has got to tickle the Democrats pink.
