Cardinal Cupich asks Trump to apologise for offensive video

Cardinal Cupich

Source: Archdiocese of Chicago

The Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blaise Cupich, has asked President Donald Trump to apologise for a "viciously racist" video posted on his Truth Social account. The final frames of the video, which appeared on President Trump's account on Thursday evening, depicted former US President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

In his statement, (in English, Spanish and Polish) the Cardinal says:

"Portraying human beings as animals - less than human - is not new.

It was a common way in past centuries for politicians and others to demean immigrant groups as each arrived, the Chinese, Irish, Italians, Slavs, Jews, Latinos and so on. Cartoons, "news" articles, even theatrical productions carried the message that these "others" were worthy of ridicule.

It made it easier to turn a blind eye to their privation, pay them pitiful wages and mock their "foreign" religion even as the country needed their labor. It immunized the national conscience when we turned away shiploads of refugees, lynched thousands and doomed generations to poverty.

We tell ourselves that those days belong in the past - that even sharing that history is harmful to the fantasy of equality we strive to create.

A few days ago, we saw that in the White House such blatant racism is not merely a practice of the past. If the President intentionally approved the message containing viciously racist images, he should admit it. If he did not know of it originally, he should explain why he let his staff describe the public outcry over their transmission as fake outrage.

Either way he should apologize. Our shock is real. So is our outrage. Nothing less than an unequivocal apology - to the nation and to the persons demeaned - is acceptable.

And it must come immediately."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the video, describing the reaction to it as "fake outrage". It was later deleted, some twelve hours after being published.

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Archdiocese of Chicago Statements: www.archchicago.org/statements