The same year as the Central Park assault, Trump appeared on an NBC News special focused on race relations, along with other guests including the filmmaker Spike Lee, poet Maya Angelou, home-entertaining celebrity Martha Stewart, and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. The guests were asked to speak about affirmative-action policies and their impact on economic opportunity in the United States. “A well-educated Black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market,” said Trump, whose father’s connections and money shaped nearly every aspect of his career. “And, I think, sometimes a Black may think that they don’t really have the advantage or this or that but in actuality today, currently, it’s, uh, it’s a, it’s a great. I’ve said on occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today I would love to be a well-educated Black because I really believe they do have an actual advantage today.”
Lee, whose recent film Do the Right Thing portrayed the era’s block-by-block racial strife in his native Brooklyn, was in shock. “Well, I certainly don’t agree with that garbage that Donald Trump said, that if he could be reborn or reincarnated, he’d want to come back as an educated Black, because we start off . . .” his voice drifted off. “I didn’t believe he said that, that’s crazy.”
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