Though the vote is not yet “in the can,” and it’s certainly not a wrap, Republican presidential candidate nominee hopeful, Donald Trump, who has presumably traveled to all four corners of the entire world, has made yet another stunningly ignorant remark based on an assessment about one city, populated mainly by African-Americans, that comes from somewhere deep between his ears.
Trump states that the northern California city of Oakland is, hands down, the “most dangerous” city in the world.
And here we were thinking the dangers lie in countries where people are decapitated publicly, and without accountability, for looking at someone sideways.
Damn Donald. Seriously? Oakland…as in Oakland, California?
Surely you jest.
But unfortunately, he does not.
This writer lived in Oakland and other surrounding cities in northern California for decades; and though I admit the city has its issues with poverty, homelessness, gangs, and shaky politicians, I damn sure would not equate it to, say, Al-Qaeda’s Lebanon.
During an interview with The New York Times, Trump named Oakland, California, and Ferguson, Missouri, as the most dangerous cities he’d ever visited. He even went so far as to compare the danger levels of those cities to that of Iraq.
New York Times reporter Robert Draper asked the real estate tycoon if he had ever been to Iraq, to which Trump responded “Never!” Draper noted that Trump seemed “horrified by the thought.”
So when the journalist followed up that question with “What’s the most dangerous place in the world you’ve been to?” Trump responded:
“Brooklyn,” he said jokingly. Then, in a more serious tone, he elaborated: “There are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world. You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse. Seriously.”
Ah, so that answers one of the many questions I have: he IS serious.
Now no one is saying there are no dangerous cities in America. Of course there are. In fact, a Mexican non-governmental organization called Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Publica y la Justicia documents the murder rates in cities with populations over 100,000, and four American cities were named in the world’s top 50 dangerous cities.
But neither Oakland or Ferguson was among them.
According to an FBI tally of violent crimes that occurred in Oakland in 2014, the California city had the third-highest rate of violent crime after Detroit, the Washington Post reports.
And as for Ferguson, it doesn’t have a high crime rate at all. Out of Missouri’s 75 cities (for which data was compiled), Ferguson had the 23rd-highest crime rate in 2012, according to the Washington Post.
It is only due to the protests that occurred in Ferguson following the 2014 shooting of African-American teen Michael Brown by a white cop that it has since become a blame target.
I tend to side with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on this one. When the democrat was asked to comment on Donald Trump’s statement about Oakland being the most dangerous city she obviously begged to differ and responded…
“The most dangerous place on earth is Donald Trump’s mouth.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
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