White House video depicts the Obamas as primates

By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about the video posted by the White House social media team. The reaction was swift, and the video drew almost universal condemnation. Let’s begin with the facts:

• The White House released a sixty-two-second video late Thursday night set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the clip is “from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.”
• The clip primarily focuses on claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and includes former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bowing down to Trump, whose face is imposed on a lion’s body.
• At the sixty-second mark, there is a quick scene of two primates, with the smiling faces of Barack and Michelle Obama imposed on them.
• Shortly before noon on Friday, the post including the video was removed from the president’s Truth Social account. A White House official said in a statement that a “staffer erroneously made the post.”

“The most racist thing I’ve seen”

Addressing the issue with reporters on Air Force One on Friday, President Trump said he only saw the beginning of the video. “I just looked at the first part, it was about voter fraud in some place, Georgia,” he stated. “I didn’t see the whole thing.” 

He added that he had given the link to someone else to post. “I gave it to the people; generally, they’d look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t.”

He said he liked the video’s message on voter fraud, but that if his staff had seen the entire clip, “probably they would have had the sense to take it down.” He added, “We took it down as soon as we found out about it.”

When asked if he condemned the racist portion of the video, Mr. Trump said, “Of course I do.” But when he was asked if he would apologize for it, he said, “No, I didn’t make a mistake. I mean . . . I look at a lot of, thousands of, things, and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.”

Democrats and Republicans responded strongly to the racist meme.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott posted on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Republican Sen. Roger Wicker wrote in a post: “This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize.” Democratic leaders voiced their strong criticism of the meme as well.

Mr. Trump called Sen. Scott personally after the lawmaker condemned the image of the Obamas, telling him that the repost was a staffer’s mistake and that he would take it down.

The “mark of Cain” and the “curse of Ham”

The meme points to the long and sordid history of associating Black people with apes. This horrific sin dates back to the eighteenth-century cultural racism and pseudo-scientific theories in which white people drew connections between Africans and monkeys to justify the enslavement of Black people and to dehumanize freed Black people as a threat to white people.

As I noted in my paper, “What does the Bible say about racism?” an Anglican minister claimed that “Negro’s were Beasts, and had no more Souls than Beasts.” Africans were considered by some to be intellectually and morally inferior to whites; some declared that they were descended from apes.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the immortal declaration that “all men are created equal,” was also the author of Notes on the State of Virginia, in which he stated that orangutans preferred “black women over those of [their] own species.” Such degradation made it easier to justify the horrors of chattel slavery as slaveholders claimed that slaves, due to their supposedly inferior nature, were better off and better cared for in bondage than in freedom.

In addition, some erroneously associated Africans with the “mark of Cain” in Genesis 4:15. Since Cain was cursed for killing his brother, this claim was used to justify the enslavement of Africans. However, the Hebrew word translated “mark” is used eighty times in the Old Testament; not once does it refer to skin color. In addition, Cain’s family line probably died in the Flood.

And some fraudulently identified Africans with the “curse of Ham.” Following the Flood, “Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of [Noah] and told his two brothers outside” (Genesis 9:22). Noah responded: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers” (v. 25). But this “curse” was directed to Canaan, whose descendants settled in what became the land of Israel (thus known as Canaanites), not to Ham’s descendants who settled in Africa.

“God shows no partiality”

I believe that racism is the greatest sin in American history. It led to the enslavement of as many as ten million people in the US and was a direct cause of the Civil War, the most destructive conflict in American history.

The Bible is categorically clear regarding God’s love for all people of all races:

• He created all humans, whatever their race or skin color: “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).
• We are told that “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11) and warned: “If you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:9).
• In heaven, we will join “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9).

As St. Augustine noted, God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. Our Lord calls us to do the same: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). We are each children of one Father, members of one family.

As a result, you and I should be as grieved by the racist meme in the White House video as if it pictured our sister or brother as primates, because it did. I strongly disagreed with the Obamas on some of their political positions, but my Father loves them as passionately as he loves those with whom I agree and calls me to do the same.

When I saw the meme, I thought of dear friends of mine who are black. I imagined their faces on the primates in the image and was instantly grieved in my heart. This is how God responded to the video and how he wants us to react to it as well.

“A single garment of destiny”

It is notable that the horrific meme was released during the first week of Black History Month and days after President Trump’s proclamation cited “the contributions of black Americans to our national greatness and their enduring commitment to the American principles of liberty, justice, and equality.”

Such “contributions” are indeed worthy of our highest commendation and gratitude. But as the meme shows, we are not yet the country we pledge to be: “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Let us pray to be such a people today, then let us work to answer our prayer. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Do you agree?