‘Pushed into a Trumphole’: MLK breakfast speaker rebukes president’s reported remarks

President Donald Trump’s reported inflammatory remarks about Haiti and African countries unleashed a stinging rebuke Monday from the keynote speaker at the 32nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Award Breakfast in Columbus.

The Rev. Frederick D. Haynes, III, senior pastor of Friendship -West Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, titled his presentation “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize in this Trumphole.” The speech was a clear rebuttal to Trump’s reported reference to “s---hole” countries last week during a meeting with lawmakers about immigration.

Haynes said it’s “metaphorically ironic” that Trump made the comments on the eve of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, causing black citizens to “relive the nightmare of a time that we had hoped was long passed and gone.”

“And as a consequence, words were uttered from the hallowed spaces of the White House that depicted and discriminated against countries of color, ignoring the painful history of those countries of color that have found themselves brutally colonized and often times under the iron heal of oppression as the result of a racist foreign policy,” Haynes said speaking in a room packed with hundreds of people at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center. “And my sisters and brothers, it was heartbreaking and shameful that this nation again found itself pushed into a Trumphole.

“Understand, a Trumphole, in a real sense, is covered with the dirt of discrimination,” he said. “A Trumphole, my sisters and brothers, sadly and shamefully, says that we must replace, as it were, the beckoning, welcoming words as it says on the Statue of Liberty, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free’ and replace those words, unfortunately, with painful words, that may well say, ‘Give me your white, your rich, your privileged few who want to prey on the poor and become fat cats on Wall Street.’”

The breakfast, sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., is held every year to honor King’s legacy and raise scholarship money for worthy students. This year’s theme was “Keeping the Dream Alive: The Ongoing Struggle against Social Injustice.”

The New Bethel SDA Chamber Singers presented two musical selections. Vincent C. McNeill sang a rendition of King’s favorite hymn, “Precious Lord.”

In addition to Haynes, attendees also heard from Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and Phenix City Mayor Eddie Lowe.

Lowe brought greetings from “Positively Phenix City” and challenged the crowd to continue King’s legacy.

“... He told the truth, and we still live in an environment and society where people don’t want to hear the truth,” he said. “... He told the truth, but he did it with grace, because he realized - I believe - that truth without grace is mean, and grace without truth is meaningless. But grace and truth is good medicine.”

In her remarks, Tomlinson also alluded to the country’s racial tone under Trump’s presidency. Later, at the breakfast, the fraternity presented her with the 2018 Unity Award.

“... It seems all too often that we’re traveling down a road we’ve been before, that somehow we’re backing up,” she said. “So I feel the need to talk about some things that we all thought were well settled.”

Haynes said both political parties have been complicit in the “shame of the Trumphole that we find ourselves in.”

“And so, yes, my beloved brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, your theme is on point,” he said. “We continue the ongoing struggle against injustice in this nation; this ongoing struggle that is manifested in so many ways in the ‘otherizing’ of those who are marginalized because of their creed, or their color, or how they have been created by our Creator.”

This story was originally published January 15, 2018 at 12:25 PM with the headline "‘Pushed into a Trumphole’: MLK breakfast speaker rebukes president’s reported remarks."