Right here’s the factor: President Donald Trump has the media literacy of a preschooler who hasn’t obtained an training outdoors of fundamental shapes and the significance of nap time. Like thousands and thousands, in all probability billions, of individuals throughout social media, Trump doesn’t perceive context or find out how to be discerning in the case of the validity of “information” sources, which is comically ironic for somebody who has turned “pretend information” right into a catch phrase that typically means any media report that’s unflattering to, properly, probably the most unflattering and unqualified president in fashionable historical past. I hesitate to even name it affirmation bias as a result of there’s actually no indication that he even “does his personal analysis.” It appears extra like White Home workers members are handing him each YouTube video or headline they’ll scrape from the bowels of the half-cocked conspiracy portion of the web.
Trump’s White Home assembly with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday (Could 21)—the place Trump spent important time whitesplaining Ramaphosa’s personal nation to him— was about as clear an instance of this as one might ask for (though no one requested for it).
As a lot of you already know, over the previous few months, Trump seems to have turn into wholly satisfied {that a} “white genocide” is occurring to white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa. (Truly, he’s been making the declare since 2018, however he has actually been ramping it up since he’s been again in workplace.) He’s been sounding the (false) alarm on the (non)problem for thus lengthy that, sooner or later, somebody simply wants to sit down him down and ask, “Mr. President, is—is the white genocide within the room with us proper now?”
Trump has been making the claims that white farmers in South Africa have been murdered en masse with out presenting a shred of tangible proof to substantiate it, however on Wednesday, he provided what I’m positive he thought was concrete, smoking gun proof. However what he truly had was a video clip with no context, photographs of atrocities that didn’t happen in South Africa, and rows of white crosses that he believes represents the graves of white farmers, apparently, simply because the crosses are the colour white.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. These are articles over the previous few days. Dying of individuals. Dying. Dying. Dying. Horrible loss of life. Dying. I don’t know. White South Africans are fleeing due to the violence and racist legal guidelines. And that is all…I’ll give these to you. So if you say, what would I love to do? I don’t know what to do. Have a look at this. White South African {couples} say that they have been attacked violently,” Trump rambled. He additionally emphasised that the victims are “not Black.”
Let’s begin with the photographs of rows of crosses that he handed round, showing to consider they symbolize the graves of white farmers. (Spoiler alert: they don’t.)
From the BBC:
The footage performed by Trump within the Oval Workplace confirmed rows of white crosses stretching off into the space alongside a rural street. Trump claimed: “These are burial websites proper right here. Burial websites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”
Nevertheless, the crosses don’t mark graves. The video is from a protest in opposition to the homicide of white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who have been ambushed and shot lifeless on their premises in 2020. The clip was shared on YouTube on 6 September, the day after the protests.
“It’s not a burial web site, however it was a memorial,” Rob Hoatson, one of many organisers of the occasion, informed the BBC. He mentioned the crosses have been erected as a “momentary memorial” to the couple.
Mr. Hoatson mentioned the crosses have since been taken down.
BBC Confirm has geolocated the footage to an space in KwaZulu-Natal province, close to the city of Newcastle. Google Road View imagery captured in Could 2023—nearly three years after the footage first appeared on-line—reveals that the crosses have been now not standing.
Even when the white crosses did symbolize precise graves, which they didn’t, there would have been no indication that the graves have been these of white individuals. Trump actually had no cause to consider the (nonexistent) victims have been of any explicit race.
What’s true is that South Africa has one of many highest homicide charges on the planet. In keeping with the BBC, there have been 26,232 murders final 12 months, 44 of which have been individuals within the farming neighborhood. Solely eight of them have been precise farmers. Not one of the figures, which come from the South African Police Service (SAPS), are damaged down by race. The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU), which represents farmers and compiles figures which might be largely primarily based on media reviews and social media posts, discovered that 23 white individuals and 9 Black individuals have been killed in farm assaults final 12 months.
In the course of the sit-down with Ramaphosa, Trump additionally performed footage from political rallies the place Black individuals sang “Kill the Boer,” an anti-apartheid track that South African courts had deemed to be hate speech, alleging that they referred to as for the loss of life of white farmers. Trump claimed the track was being led by “officers” and “those that have been in workplace.”
Nope.
Extra from BBC:
One of many males main the rally was Julius Malema, who beforehand led the ruling ANC’s youth wing. In 2012 he left the celebration and has by no means held an official authorities place. He now leads a celebration referred to as the Financial Freedom Fighters (EFF) which received 9.5% in final 12 months’s election, getting into opposition in opposition to the brand new multi-party coalition.
Ramaphosa informed Trump the EFF is “a small minority celebration” and mentioned that “our authorities coverage is totally in opposition to what he was saying.”
To be truthful, Trump additionally performed a separate video from 2012 the place former President Jacob Zuma sang the lyric “shoot the Boer.” Zuma, who left workplace in 2018, left the African Nationwide Congress (ANC) after it vowed to cease selling the track shortly after Zuma sang it.
Trump additionally had a stack of print-outs of reports articles purporting to be reviews on “white genocide” in SA. (Spoiler alert: they weren’t.)
One picture, for instance, confirmed Pink Cross employees in protecting gear dealing with physique baggage.
“Look, right here’s burial websites all over,” mentioned Trump. “These are all white farmers which might be being buried.”
In keeping with AFP, the picture was truly a screenshot from a YouTube video of Pink Cross employees responding after ladies have been raped and burned alive throughout a mass jailbreak within the Congolese metropolis of Goma. The caption on the video even said as a lot.
In keeping with the United Nations, genocide is outlined as murderous acts “dedicated with intent to destroy, in entire or partly, a nationwide, ethnical, racial or spiritual group, as such.” There’s merely no proof of that in South Africa. (Not that Trump has ever indicated that he cares about info or might discern factual info even when he did.)
Apart from Trump, have you learnt who has largely promoted the concept that a “genocide” of white farmers in SA is happening? White nationalists—that’s who.
Trump is now a white nationalist on two continents.
Unhappy.
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