Were you aware that Howard University had a College Republicans organization? If you answered “no,” you are not alone.
According to a recent segment on PBS Newshour, two Black women are bringing the organization back to life after 10 years of silence, hoping to convince other students that President Donald Trump, the same man who isn’t really sure if Frederick Douglass is alive or dead, is really good for African-Americans.
Alexis Hasty, the group’s co-chair, shared that neither one of her parents are Republican and that education helped her see the light.
“After high school as I was learning more and more, and after I turned 18 things kind of come into perspective. I was really just doing my own research and just figuring it out for myself. And one day I just came to the conclusion that despite my political socialization I am just going to go against that because it’s not what I believe,” the college junior said.
Hasty also believes that with Trump in office, gun violence will go down in cities like Chicago.
“He’s going to be the type of president we need to help keep us safe. He supports community policing and makes the safety of all communities, especially inner cities, a top priority,” Hasty stressed.
Daisha Martin, the other co-chair, says African-Americans should question their longtime alliance with the Democratic Party:
“If we were more aware and had access to education and politics itself we would know what does it mean to be Republican, Democrat or Independent? What can the government do? Where can I have my voice heard the most? The local the state or the federal level? I am just being more aware and engaged in politics and maybe Black people would have a more diverse scope of what politics is.”
According to Spin, Martin and Hasty declined to divulge for whom they cast their vote in the 2016 presidential election. And despite Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, they remain dyed in the wool conservatives.
“He doesn’t act the part, so people are going to look at him and automatically shut out what he says—his ideas, his policies,” Hasty explained. “So I think it has been difficult to reach out to students, due to [Trump], but it is what it is.”
And despite surrounding himself with Steve Bannon, a known White supremacist, she also doesn’t believe that Trump shares his White nationalist ideologies.
“The alt-right movement has nothing to do with my wonderful party,” Hasty added. “I think Trump has his own head on his shoulders that don’t deprive from that group and I think that we’re lucky with that. I’m happy with that.”
Watch the PBS interview:
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Two Howard Republican Students Think Trump Is Good For Black Folks was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
