Trump and Biden couldn’t be more different on the complicated issue of race

Protesters outside Los Angeles City Hall in June hold images of George Floyd, who died when a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck. Trump has consistently downplayed the role of racism in American life while simultaneously attacking protesters, making racist and xenophobic comments and claiming he’s done more for Black people than any other president “with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.” Biden has positioned himself as a crusader for racial justice who’ll use the presidency to correct long-standing social inequities and restore the climate of relative tolerance that marked his two terms as vice president under President Obama. In an interview with veteran journalist Bob Woodward, Trump scoffed at the idea that his whiteness affords him privileges that people of color don’t enjoy, according to a recording for Woodward’s book “Rage.” Trump has been defensive, obtuse and vulgar when discussing racial inequities, white supremacist violence and his own stereotyping of Black people, Latinos, Muslims, Asians and immigrants from Central America as threats to public safety and health. Trump told the mostly white audience that Omar was trying to dictate how to run “our country,” implying, as he’s done before, that she doesn’t belong in the U.S. Trump has described some majority Black nations as “shithole” countries while suggesting, “We should have people from places like Norway.” And within days of Harris being named Biden’s vice presidential running mate, he perpetuated the false claim that Harris, who was born in Oakland to an Indian immigrant mother and Jamaican immigrant father, might not be eligible to serve as vice president. As for the Black Lives Matter movement, he calls the mostly peaceful activists “anarchists” and “Marxists” who never should’ve gained “respectability.” Even so, Trump has shown an openness to criminal justice reforms that would reduce the number of Black people in the nation’s prisons, and his administration has taken steps to aid business development, job creation and educational programs in communities of color.