Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie provided the perfect commentary on Donald Trump with a clear and concise breakdown of the president-elect’s behavior and why he shouldn’t be given praise during his presidency.
Speaking with BBC’s Newsnight shortly after Trump’s win against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Adichie discussed Trump’s racist rhetoric with conservative commentator and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. As the two went back and forth about Trump’s relaxed and somewhat humble behavior after his win, Adichie explained why we shouldn’t be so quick to give the president-elect a pat on the back.
“I think what we should do is look at Trump for who Trump has told us and shown us that he is,” she said. “So let’s look at what he has said on the campaign trail. The only way we can judge the kind of president he will be is based on the campaign that he ran.” She also questioned the argument that Trump’s stance on banning Muslims, “building a wall” and deporting immigrants would suddenly change once Inauguration Day arrives. “On the one hand we’re told that Trump’s appeal is that he says what he thinks and he says it like it is, and –then on the other hand –we’re told that he doesn’t really mean it. So which is it? There’s something very troubling about that.”
The conversation turned heated when the group discussed Trump’s xenophobic and racist comments. Tyrrell refused to believe Trump has said racist comments throughout his campaign. This didn’t stop Adichie from pointing out Tyrrell’s ignorance of what racism is.
“If you’re a white man, you don’t get to define what racism is,” she said. “You don’t get to sit there and say that he hasn’t been racist, when objectively he has. And it’s not about your opinion. There are objective things, racism is an objective reality, and Donald Trump has inhabited that reality. I think it’s very sad that the standards have been so lowered for Donald Trump that because he manages not to behave like a spoiled child, he needs to be praised,” Adichie continued. “To say to us that we have to disregard everything that Donald Trump said and did during his long campaign and judge him just on the one day after he had won the election doesn’t make sense.”
One person that received an immense amount of backlash was Oprah Winfrey. The philanthropist’s comments on Trump and President Barack Obama’s meeting this week didn’t sit well with fans who believed she was trying to normalize Trump’s previous behavior.
Take a look at the video below.