U.S. Catholic bishops condemned President Donald Trump’s social media post that showed the faces of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama superimposed on cartoon apes.
Trump has since deleted the Feb. 5 Truth Social post, said he did not intend to post a depiction of the Obamas as apes, and condemned the racist part of the video. He refused to apologize for posting it.
In a statement by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on X, Bishop Daniel Garcia, chair of the Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation, said he was “glad to see that the egregious post has been taken down” and reposted part of the USCCB’s 2018 pastoral letter against racism.
“Every racist act — every such comment, every joke, every disparaging look as a reaction to the color of skin, ethnicity, or place of origin — is a failure to acknowledge another person as a brother or sister, created in the image of God,” the 2018 statement said.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, issued a statement Feb. 9 calling on Trump to immediately issue an apology, regardless of whether it was intentional, saying the post showed that “such blatant racism is not merely a practice of the past.”
“Either way he should apologize,” he said. “Our shock is real. So is our outrage. Nothing less than an unequivocal apology — to the nation and to the persons demeaned — is acceptable. And it must come immediately.”
Cupich said the trope of “portraying human beings as animals — less than human — is not new” and that it was commonly used to “demean immigrant groups.” He said it “immunized the national conscience when we turned away shiploads of refugees, lynched thousands, and doomed generations to poverty.”
“If the president intentionally approved the message containing viciously racist images, he should admit it. If he did not know of it originally, he should explain why he let his staff describe the public outcry over their transmission as fake outrage,” Cupich said.
Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger issued a statement calling the depiction “a racist meme” and said it’s “disturbing” if either Trump or a staff member views racist memes “as humorous or appropriate expressions of political discourse.”
“They are deeply offensive and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” he said. “I join my voice to the many calling for a public apology with full acceptance of responsibility, and I also bristle at claims from the White House that the rage many of us feel is ‘fake.’”
“Beyond the necessary apology, I also believe that we all must examine our conscience, individually and collectively,” he said. “We need to recognize and acknowledge how prevalent racism continues to be in our society and commit ourselves to vigilance in counteracting its harm.”
Sister Josephine Garrett of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth posted on Instagram that the depiction is “an age-old racist trope” and said “what a time to be alive,” in reference to the president posting it on social media.
Garrett, who is Black, said she is not Democrat or Republican and posted a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama, saying: “Since these faces will be degraded in the timelines today, I’m adding something to the timeline that honors the dignity of this couple and their family — and also, it’s Black History Month.”
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish-American Catholic fraternal organization, also issued a statement against Trump’s social media post, saying: “We recognize this tactic because it was used against us as Irish Americans.”
“The claim that this video was merely an ‘internet meme’ or that critics were engaging in ‘fake outrage’ is both morally bankrupt and historically ignorant,” the statement said. “There is nothing lighthearted about reducing any people to apes. This imagery has been used for centuries as a tool of oppression, designed to dehumanize and justify subjugation. It is not humor; it is bigotry.”
Trump’s social media post
Late Thursday, Feb. 5, around 11:45 p.m. ET, Trump posted a video that was one minute and two seconds long.
The bulk of the video reiterated claims of election fraud in the 2020 election. At the 59-second mark, it depicts the Obamas as apes.
When reporters asked him about it, Trump said: “I just looked at the first part” about voter fraud and “I didn’t see the whole thing.” When asked whether he condemns the racist part of the video, he said “of course I do.”
“I guess during the end of it, there was some picture that people don’t like,” he said. “I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it.”
Trump refused to apologize for the post when asked, saying: “No; I didn’t make a mistake.” He said he looks at “thousands of things” and only “looked at the beginning of it [and that part] was fine.”
The Obamas have not publicly commented on the video.
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