Peter (fl. 1863) (also known as Gordon, or "Whipped Peter", or "Poor Peter") was an escaped American slave who was the subject of photographs documenting the extensive keloid scarring of his back from whippings received in slavery. The "scourged back" photo became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most notable photos of the 19th-century United States.
Yeah, I don't think so. He is trying to erase white guilt which is the only thing that is holding back a lot of people from wholesale attacking minorities.
What your saying is a gross simplification and not at all what the goal of this all is. His administration is literally trying to erase history and roll back whatever meager protections anyone other than white males enjoy.
This also is about people not receiving consequences for their actions. Trump has never received any consequences so why should his country. It is a denial of reality. The US is not a place of systemic racism when clearly it is.
Trump may be a bumbling old man but this is straight out of the white supremacist's playbook.
I don't disagree with your assessment of Trump and his goals, or at least what the goals of the people he's surrounded by are. However, I've been talking about how I believe most of his base pereceives his comments which is usually pretty different from what he's literally saying. His base hears what they want to hear in whatever he says and in this case I think that is "I don't need to force myself to confront an uncomfortable topic" not "slavery is good".
I see your point about what some people may think about what he has said.
No one is forcing anyone to confront the horrors of slavery, what is happening here is they are trying to erase it. You literally have to go to a museum and look in the specific section about slavery to see a watered down version of what happened. Even this apparently is too much though.
So while he may be whitewashing the debate with statements like we focus too much on slavery being bad (which we don't and also it was very bad) the reality is the administration is busy erasing history by using its clout to remove historical references to minorities and women.