[Illustration by ALEX FINE]
Macy’s has a special deal with Donald Trump. They invest in developing Trump’s brand and sell his clothing line and fragrance at their locations. To this end, they have had major events at Macy’s Herald Square location and they often feature and promote Trump in advertisements designed to celebrate the magic of Macy’s. Recently, Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren sent Donald Trump a letter touting how excited Macy’s was to be working with Trump and promising to expand Trump’s brand even further than it already is. But, why is Macy’s celebrating Trump? Donald Trump engages in especially unpleasant, nasty and despicable behavior. He has:
– Long engaged in sexist behavior. Trump has a long record of personally attacking women he disagrees by calling them “unattractive,” ugly or fat. He once sent a target a personal note telling her that she has the “face of a dog.” Not even his own daughter is immune to Trump’s sexism. While referring to his daughter, Trump observed: “She does have a very nice figure… if [she] weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
– Hypocritically complained about jobs being shipped overseas to China, despite the fact that almost his entire clothing line sold at Macy’s is made in China and other Asian nations.
– Use his public platform to deny the reality of climate change. Following Hurricane Sandy, Trump publicly declared: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
– Perpetuated the racially charged birther conspiracy, repeatedly arguing that President Obama has been lying and was not born in the United States.
The list goes on. But the point remains, Macy’s should dump Trump. MORE
RELATED: A grassroots campaign for Macy’s to end their association with Donald Trump has caught fire. Nearly 400,000 people have added their name to a petition on Signon.org for Macy’s, which exclusively sells Trump’s clothing line and fragrance, to dump the controversial businessman. MORE
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Donald Trump Is A Giant Tool
RELATED: The “birther” challenge, which galvanized so many Republican voters, expresses a deep unease with black claims to political inclusion and leadership that can be traced as far back as the 1860s. Then, white Southerners 
(and a fair share of white Northerners) questioned the legitimacy of black suffrage, viciously lampooned the behavior of new black officeholders and mobilized to murder and drive off local black leaders.
Much of the paramilitary work was done by the White League, the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilantes, who destroyed interracial Reconstruction governments and helped pave the road to the ferocious repression, disenfranchisement and segregation of the Jim Crow era.
D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film, “The Birth of a Nation,” which played to enthusiastic audiences, including President Woodrow Wilson, gave these sensibilities wide cultural sanction, with its depiction of Reconstruction’s democratic impulses as a violation of white decency and its celebration of the Klan for saving the South and reuniting the nation.
By the early 20th century the message was clear: black people did not belong in American political society and had no business wielding power over white people. This attitude has died hard. It is not, in fact, dead. Despite the achievements of the civil rights movement, African-Americans have seldom been elected to office from white-majority districts; only three, including Mr. Obama, have been elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction, and they have been from either Illinois or Massachusetts. MORE