Tohono O’odham Native American Nation were there long before either Mexico or the U.S. existed as nations

WEST SACRAMENTO CA (IFS) -- President Trump's campaign to drive a wall between the O'odham Nation which crosses two countries.  What about them Mr. President?  This will never be in the national news, because you will have it suppressed as "Fake News". - KHS 

If you are Tohono O’odham and live on the Mexican side, it’s a second-class life

May 25, 2014 5:00AM ET

by Kate Kilpatrick

SAN MANUEL, Mexico — Jesús Manuel Casares Figueroa needs a catheter or he will die. His bloated chest pressed against his blue jacket as he sat in a wheelchair in front of his uncle’s modest concrete-block home, one of a handful in this traditional village of the O’odham in the Sonoran desert. His mother touched a gold-colored earring that dangled from Jesús Manuel’s left ear. Her son was born with spina bifida, she explained, and a chronic kidney infection has complicated his condition.

In February, the doctor said Jesús Manuel urgently needed the operation. His family didn’t have the money then, and they don’t have it now.

Jesús Manuel Casares Figueroa sits with his uncle and mother in a tiny O’odham village in the Sonoran Desert.

Kate Kilpatrick

So in a few hours mother and son will go door to door asking for donations in the neighboring O’odham village, about 60 miles south of Nogales.

For thousands of years, the Tohono O’odham (meaning “Desert People”) inhabited what is today southern Arizona and the northern state of Sonora in Mexico. But the O’odham were there long before either Mexico or the U.S. existed as nations. “We’ve always been here,” said Amy Juan, 28, a young activist on the reservation. “Nobody can argue that we weren’t here first.”

After the Mexican-American War, the international boundary between the U.S. and Mexico was drawn at the Gila River, just north of the O’odham ancestral lands. But the Gadsden Purchase in 1854 redrew the border right through O’odham territory. The O’odham were never consulted.

“They just drew a line, and when they drew that line O’odham in Arizona became citizens or were considered part of the U.S., O’odham in Mexico of course were not,” said Carlos G. Veléz-Ibáñez, director of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. “Unlike some of our Canadian borders, you don’t have the opportunity of dual citizenship or being able to determine which country you’re a citizen of.”

In the aftermath of 9/11, O’odham living on the U.S. reservation were forced to deal with the unintended consequences of a militarized border: Border Patrol agents harass and treat them as undocumented migrants on their sovereign land. Their desert landscape and wildlife get clobbered by migrants, traffickers and federal law enforcement. They return home to find cars stolen, houses ransacked by desperate migrants — migrants who far too often don’t survive the desert elements. It’s also not uncommon for tribal members to be lured by fast cash into working as coyotes or mules for the Mexican cartels, ending up in jail themselves.

But less attention is paid to the grave impact the same border has on O’odham in Mexico, who’ve become second-class citizens within their own tribe.

A nation divided

The Tohono O’odham Nation (pronounced TOHN-oh AUTH-um) is a sovereign government and federally recognized Indian nation that claims 25,000 members. Their reservation — established in 1917 — is the second largest in the U.S. and spans 2.8 million acres, about the size of Connecticut. The southern boundary includes 75 miles of the U.S.-Mexico international border.

Estimates vary on how many Tohono O’odham live in Mexico, and the tribal government refused to comment on the topic. The Tohono O’odham Community College website states that about 1,800 enrolled Tohono O’odham reside in Mexico. According to the 2000 national census and subsequent report by Mexico’s National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, 363 O’odham were living in Sonora, Mexico. However, that tally included only families in which someone in the household spoke the O’odham language, ñiok, which has been almost entirely replaced by Spanish.

Members of the Tohono O’odham used to cross the border for years with no problem.

Kate Kilpatrick

When the Tohono O’odham reservation was created, said Veléz-Ibáñez, it was a distinctive land base that O’odham had control over even though it was held in trust by the U.S. government.

“In Mexico that didn’t happen at all. In Mexico they were at the mercy of the Mexican government,” he said. O’odham in Mexico had no special rights or recognition, and throughout the 20th century Mexican ranchers encroached on their land. (It wasn’t until after the Zapatista movement sprang out of the forests in Chiapas in 1996 that Mexico’s federal government officially recognized parcels of indigenous lands.)

Veléz-Ibáñez said the special relationship between the U.S. and native people beginning early on provided O’odham in the U.S. opportunities for education, economic development, housing subsidies, work and training programs — and health care — not available to O’odham in Mexico.

“The Indian health service is not a Cadillac program,” he explained, “but it’s still much better than what O’odham in Mexico had.”

When the border fence was erected — to this day just concrete vehicle barriers connected by chicken wire — it didn’t stop O’odham from crossing between the countries.

“The border meant not a thing to me,” said Henry Jose, a Navy veteran whose story was included in “It Is Not Our Fault,” a collection of testimonies from O’odham on both sides of the border used to make a case to Congress for citizenship for all O’odham. (The book was published in 2001, shortly before 9/11 changed the immigration debate drastically.) “The border is between the white people and the Mexicans but not us O’odham. These are Indian lands, O’odham lands.”

“We used to go back and forth freely,” confirmed Jose Garcia, lieutenant governor of the Sonoran O’odham who serves as a liaison between their traditional leaders and the Tohono O’odham Nation. These days Garcia, 72, splits his time between Arizona, where he owns La Indita restaurant in downtown Tucson, and Magdalena de Kino in Sonora, Mexico, where he advocates for the Mexican O’odham. Garcia’s grandparents were born on the U.S. side and migrated to Mexico. “So I look at Sonora and I look at the Nation as one for me,” Garcia said.

However, especially after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Customs and Border Protection — and the Department of Homeland Security it operates under — saw it much differently.

Tohono O’odham along the U.S.-Mexico border

Members of the Tohono O’odham once crossed the international border that divided their land with ease. But now they struggle with an increasingly militarized boundary with profound effects for both sides.

A border strategy

The Southwest Border Strategy, which was implemented beginning in the early 1990s, was a “prevention through deterrence” approach to illegal immigration. The goal was to crack down on the flow of migrants (and drugs) at popular urban crossing areas like Tijuana–San Diego and Juarez–El Paso, and thereby funnel the illicit traffic to the remote, rugged desert, where temperatures reach 110 degrees in summer. Border Patrol believed the maneuver would give it a tactical advantage, and at the same time “make it so difficult and so costly to enter this country illegally that fewer individuals try.”

However, they underestimated the resolve — and desperation — of migrants in search of economic opportunities. Despite the number of border agents in the Tucson sector skyrocketing from 280 to 1,770 between 1993 and 2004, Tohono O’odham tribal officials estimated that up to 1,500 undocumented migrants per day were crossing through the reservation.

A sign in the desert warns of dangerous conditions for migrants crossing the border.

Kate Kilpatrick

For the O’odham, crossing the border anywhere but official points became illegal. Garcia says the fortified border further isolated the Sonoran O’odham.

“In Mexico the government has this mindset that the O’odham people that are living along the border are more Americans than Mexican citizens,'' he said. "And O’odham on this side have that same mind concept — that they’re in Mexico, so let Mexico take care of them. So we’re caught between a rock and a hard place.”

All members of the Tohono O’odham tribe, whether U.S. or Mexican citizens, are entitled to access the reservation clinic overseen by the U.S. government. In practice, border policies prevent this.

According to the Tohono O’odham Nation’s Resolution 98-063, passed in 1998, “enforcement of U.S. immigration laws has made it extremely difficult for all Tohono O’odham to continue their sovereign right to pass and re-pass the United States-Mexico border as we have done for centuries as our members are routinely stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol, while others have been actually ‘returned’ to Mexico even though enrolled.”

Many O’odham in Mexico do not have the proper documentation now required to cross legally, whether birth certificates (lacking due to home births) or tribal IDs (because they lack the paperwork or witnesses required for enrollment).

Plus, with the Sonoran desert being used as a backyard for criminal organizations, O’odham families in the U.S. have largely halted visits to their Mexican O’odham kin.

The fear is not unfounded.

“In my village [Wo’osan] you can’t even go out to the wooded area because you would never know who’s there,” said Garcia. Other areas of O’odham villages have been abandoned, he added, and turned into campsites by criminal organizations.

The problem of representation

But for Garcia, the issue facing O’odham in Mexico is not just access to resources but representation. “There isn’t any representation in the [tribal] council that comes from Sonora,” he said.

Even among those O’odham in Mexico who are officially enrolled in the Nation, very few are registered to one of the 12 districts on the reservation. Most Sonoran O’odham IDs state N.D., no district, Garcia said. This means that even though the tribe includes its Mexican members in the annual count that determines federal funds, those funds get divvied up between the districts and don’t reach the O’odham in Mexico.

If the tribe would allow it, he said, representation would give O’odham in Mexico a say in the tribal government.

“They would have a voice in representing the housing needs, the road needs, the education, the health issue — all those things would be voiced here on the Nation if we had representation.”

Garcia believes it’s vital to the economic improvement of O’odham in Mexico as well as their ability to keep their culture and identity intact.

“If the O’odham in Mexico don’t get organized, if they don’t get a unity going, they’re always going to be in the same boat,” he said.

Facing extinction

David Ortega agrees. The self-described warrior with long salt-and-pepper hair was born in the U.S. but moved to Mexico where he lives with his wife, Patty. “We have lost that oneness,” he said. “We as native people have always supported each other. We’ve always lived together as one throughout history and culture.”

“I feel we have to unify first, bring ourselves back from the dominant culture’s way, relearn what we are as O’odham people.”

To that end, he’s spent the last year traveling from village to village in Sonora, Mexico, teaching O’odham language classes so that O’odham in Mexico don’t completely lose touch with their traditions and "him dag,'' or way of life.

But it’s a race against time.

Just a few generations go, almost every O’odham, whether in the U.S. or Mexico, spoke O’odham.

In 2012, researchers from the Center of Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) classified 143 indigenous languages in Mexico that are facing extinction. The O’odham language (still called Pápago in Mexico) falls into the most vulnerable, or “critically endangered,” group, with only 116 speakers. Jacob Franco Hernández, a Ph.D. student at the University of Sonora, says even this count is not accurate. Since 2008 he’s worked with the Sonoran O’odham, and in his 2010 master’s thesis determined there are only 24 fluent speakers in Mexico.

While O’odham on both sides of the border have adopted the dominant language (whether English or Spanish), those on the U.S. side have maintained a much stronger grip on their indigenous language, history and traditions.

“There are O’odham descendants [in Mexico] that say, ‘We know we’re O’odham, but we don’t have anyone to show us what it is to be O’odham,’” said Garcia, the former lieutenant governor. “And most of our elders in Mexico that did know something about ‘him dag’ are gone. They say there’s a lot of elders still there, but what I see is a lot of elders who don’t have any interest in teaching. And we’re trying to revive and restore some of the traditional things that have been forgotten in Mexico.” 

The reservation for the Tohono O’odham in the United States and an approximation of traditional lands on both sides of the border. Sources: “Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 10: Southwest”; O’odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective; Resource Center at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York.

A blessing in song

Outside Jesús Manuel’s uncle’s home, eight family members gathered under a tree adorned with rusting horseshoes and other metal tools and trinkets. After a hearty breakfast of tortillas, beans, and fresh chicharrones cooked over an outdoor fire, a handful of O’odham youth from the reservation said goodbye to Jesús Manuel’s family. 

Alex Soto, of the hip-hop duo Shining Soul shared a rap from his new album critiquing U.S. immigration policy.

Amy Juan wanted to leave the family with a traditional song. In the O’odham culture, songs are also prayers. She chose a song in ñiok that’s been passed down through the generations and was taught to her by a now-deceased elder. (To see a photo of Juan and to listen to her sing, see below.) It’s about a young man’s journey to the ocean. On the shore he dances the i:dahiwan, the cleansing dance, asking for blessings for everyone.

“I wanted to leave the family with something that would connect them to their O’odham roots,” Juan said. “I left it not only with the family but with the land, to remind it and them of our presence and to remind them that it is still O’odham land and our ancestors still remain there.”

Listen: A Traditional Tohono O’odham Song

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Tohono O’odham Nation

Introductory Information

The Tohono O’odham Nation is comparable in size to the state of Connecticut. Its four non-contiguous segments total more than 2.8 million acres at an elevation of 2,674 feet. Within its land the Nation has established an Industrial Park that is located near Tucson. Tenants of the Industrial Park include Caterpillar, the maker of heavy equipment; the Desert Diamond Casino, an enterprise of the Nation; and, an 23 acre foreign trade zone.

The lands of the Nation are located within the Sonoran Desert in south central Arizona. The largest community, Sells, functions as the Nation’s capital.

Of the four lands bases, the largest contains more than 2.7 million acres. Boundaries begin south of Casa Grande and encompass parts of Pinal and Pima Counties before continuing south into Mexico.

San Xavier is the second largest land base, and contains 71,095 acres just south of the City of Tucson. The smaller parcels include the 10,409-acre San Lucy District, located near the city of Gila Bend, and the 20-acre Florence Village, which is located near the city of Florence.

The landscape is consistently compelling: a wide desert valley, interspersed with plains and marked by mountains that rise abruptly to nearly 8,000 feet.

As of December, 2000, the population was reported at nearly 24,000 people.

Government And Council Members Listing
Edward D. Manuel, Chairman
Verlon M. Jose, Vice Chairman
Legislative Council
Timothy Joaquin, Legislative Chairman
Edward Manuel, Legislative Vice-Chairman
Frances Miguel, Baboquivari
Frances Antone, Baboquivari (Alternate)
Ethel Garcia, Chukut Kuk
Billman Lopez, Chukut Kuk (Alternate)
Timothy Joaquin, Gu Achi
Cynthia Manuel, Gu Achi (Alternate)
Pamela Anghill, Gu Vo
Grace Manuel, Gu Vo (Alternate)
Sandra Ortega, Hickiwan
Louis Lopez, Hickiwan (Alternate)
Chester Antone, Pisinemo (Alternate)
Lorraine Eller, San Lucy
Jana Montana, San Lucy (Alternate)
Olivia Villegas-Liston, San Xavier
Hilarion Campus, San Xavier (Alternate)
Frances Conde, Schuk Toak
Frederick Jose, Schuk Toak (Alternate)
Evelyn Juan-Manuel, Sells
Arthur Wilson, Sells (Alternate)
Nicholas Jose, Sif Oidak
Mary Lopez, Sif Oidak (Alternate)
District Chairpersons
Baboquivari District – Chairman Veronica J. Harvey
Chukut Kuk District - Chairwoman Marla Kay Henry
Gu Achi District – Chairman Camillus Lopez
Gu Vo District – Chairwoman Geneva S. Ramon
Hickiwan District – Chairwoman Delma Garcia
Pisinemo District – Chairman Stanley Cruz
San Lucy District – Chairman Albert Manuel Jr.
San Xavier District – Chairman Austin Nunez
Schuk Toak District – Chairwoman Phyllis Juan
Sells District – Chairman, Vacant
Sif Oidak District – Chairwoman Rita A. Wilson
Public Relations

Attractions
The San Xavier district is known for the San Xavier Mission Del Bac, the White Dove of the Desert. In addition to this magnificent mission, the area maintains an Indian arts and crafts market. Nearby Baboquivari Mountain Park has picnic facilities.

Gaming
Gaming was authorized August 11, 1993 and on October 12 of that year, the Desert Diamond Casino opened. The casino offered visitors a choice of 500 slot machines which has resulted in the Nation being the 13th largest employer in the area, representing over 2,400 jobs.

In 1995 the facility was expanded to include bingo and live card dealers as well as 500 slot machines. A second, smaller casino, Golden Hasan opened 1999, and has 100 slot machines.

The Desert Diamond Casino, open 24 hours, and is located at 7350 South Old Nogales Highway in Tucson, Arizona.

Visitor Amenities
Basic community services are available on the “main”, Gila Bend and San Xavier reservations.

San Xavier Development Authority (520)741-1940
Baboquivari Mountain Park (520)383-2236
Special Tribal Events
February (1st weekend) – Annual Rodeo

Contact
Tohono O’Odham Nation
PO Box 837
Sells, AZ 85634

Phone: (520) 383-2028
Fax: (520) 383-3379

Muhammad Ali’s son reportedly detained at airport, asked twice about his religion

WEST SACRAMENTO CA (IFS) -- This goes to show you the stupidity of the Agency and the Agent who ask a person that is born here and the son of a great American, that there is "no quarter" for any one who is Muslim or not and that is a born citizen of this country.  President Trump, you and your people are in front of the line for "Dum and Dumber".  You are a true racist person and you can not hide behind the shield of the United States Government. - khs

“To the Ali family, it's crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump's efforts to ban Muslims from the United States.”

Family friend and lawyer Chris Mancini

An activist in his time, it’s likely Muhammad Ali would not like this alleged turn of events. (David Fenton/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Muhammad Ali Jr. had just returned to Florida from Jamaica, where he had accompanied his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, who was there giving a speech about black history. After arriving at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport, Ali Jr. — son of one of the greatest boxers of all time — was detained and asked at least twice about his religion, according to family friend and attorney Chris Mancini. Ali — born in Philadelphia in 1972 — and his mother are both Muslim.

“To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to [President] Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States,” Mancini told the Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.) on Friday about the alleged incident, which occurred on Feb. 7.

Late last month Trump signed an executive order calling for a temporary travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa. The order, which critics accused of being a thinly veiled attempt to discriminate against Muslims, has since been rejected by a federal appeals court and effectively overturned. However, according to Mancini, that hasn’t stopped government representatives from discriminating based on religion, which is how he said Ali Jr. ended up being detained, despite his holding a U.S. passport.

[Ex-Man United star says he was denied entry into U.S. due to Iranian stamp in passport]

Mancini told the Courier-Journal on Friday that Ali and his mother were initially flagged by immigration agents for their “Arabic-sounding” names. He said Camacho-Ali was not detained after she showed officials a photograph of herself with her ex-husband, but when Ali Jr. could not produce a photograph to show of himself with his father, who died last year, immigration officials separated Ali Jr. from his mother, then detained him for approximately two hours.

Mancini told the Miami New Times that immigration officers asked Ali Jr. about his religion within the first 30 minutes of being detained and again when he was taken to a small holding room where he was held for another 90 minutes.

“What right does the United States have to inquire about somebody’s religion when they enter the country?” Mancini told the New Times. “There was no other basis for a secondary inspection. This is an instance where the ban has been enforced even though it has been thrown out. The government is still trying to find grounds to keep Muslims out.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to comment on the specifics on the alleged detention, noting to the Courier-Journal, that “due to the restrictions of the Privacy Act, U.S. Customs and Border Protection cannot discuss individual travelers.” The spokesperson added, “However, all international travelers arriving in the U.S. are subject to CBP inspection.”

The Washington Post has reached out to a spokesman for the late boxer’s family for further comment.

Mancini told the Courier-Journal that immigration officials eventually allowed Ali Jr. back into the country, where he was able to then reunite with his mother, who had asked local police for help in the meantime. However, because customs officials are under federal jurisdiction, local police were powerless.

Ali Jr. and his mother live in Deerfield Beach, Fla., about 20 miles from the airport.

Ezra M. Hamilton

Ezra M. Hamilton (1833–1914) was a pioneer known for his role in the development of Antelope Valley, California. In 1896 he discovered gold in Rosamond, California and began a successful mining operation that spurred growth in the area.

He founded and developed the nearby town of Willow Springs. He was also an inventor, farmer, mason and businessman, served on the Los Angeles Common Council, volunteered in the Rogue River Wars and served two years in the Union Army.

Contents  
1 Personal
2 Vocation
3 Politics
4 Manuscript
5 Legacy
6 References and notes
7 External links
Personal
Hamilton was born in 1833 in Brown County, Illinois, spent his boyhood there and "worked a short time on a riverboat before heading west to seek his fortune" in 1853.

On his journey West he fell in love with a young woman, but they were prevented from marrying by Ezra's stubborn desire to first make his fortune prospecting in California. [In the book he wrote about his adventures, he] never reveals her identity, but his life is shaped by their relationship. . . . after seven years his lady friend married another.

He returned to Minnesota after the American Civil War[3] and there he found another woman, Sarah Landson, and they were married in 1861; they lived in the Minneapolis, area. Sarah and their son died in 1867.

Hamilton married again, to Harriet Moffett, and they had four sons, Fred, Truman, Eugene and Lester.[2] While residing in Los Angeles, they lived at 310 Avenue 23[4] in today's Lincoln Heights district, East Los Angeles, in a house he built on first arriving.

He was a commander of the Kenesaw post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Hamilton died in Willow Springs, California, on July 4, 1914, the tenth anniversary of his marriage to Harriet, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles.[2] FHe left his widow and three sons, Fred of Willow Springs, Lester of Avenue 23 and Trumon of Rosamond.

Vocation
Military
Hamilton served for two years in the First Minnesota Regiment of the Union Army during the Civil War.

Inventions
After the war, Hamilton worked in carpentry and farming, which led to his first patent for a peat-pressing machine in 1867.

Patents

Patent 71,163 for Peat Machine, 1867
Patent 196,295 for Molds for Making Pipes from Mortar, 1877
Patent 220,757 for Apparatus for Making and Laying Continuous Concrete-Pipe, 1879
Patent 216,673 for Pipes for Irrigation, 1879
Patent 1,025,395 for Wave-Motor, 1912
Patent 1,026,803 for Automobile-Tire, 1912

Brick making
In Los Angeles Hamilton began manufacturing pottery,[5] clay pipe, tile and bricks. For the clay needed to make his products, he purchased a hill near Rosamond, California, which is where he later made a gold strike.

About 1884 Hamilton's brick yard switched from using wood to petroleum oil for the firing of the bricks, thereby reducing his cost from $3 to $1 per thousand.

Mining
In October 1897 Hamilton was just a "poor old soldier receiving a pension of six dollars a month" when he filed a 300-by-500-yard mineral claim in the Antelope Valley, California, ninety-six miles north of Los Angeles, five miles west of Roseland and three miles east of Willow Springs.

In March 1899 he was transformed into a wealthy man by his discovery of a rich vein of gold ore: He took $30,000 worth of ore from it, and although the Lida Mine, as he called it, was "well worth a million dollars" he sold it for $100,000 in December 1900. He retained an adjacent mine, which he named Fay.

He told a newspaper reporter: "Three more days of prospecting would have finished me. I was worn out physically, financially and mentally, when I made the big find, but then, the gold cure is a good one, and now I feel young again."

Hamilton was sued by Helen Frick, who claimed she had been a partner in the claim but that he had misled her as to the mine's worth and bought her share for only $500. She asked that the sale be set aside as fraudulent and that Hamilton account to her for all the profits.  It was said that Helen Frick's name was used instead of that of her husband, who had bought out Hamilton's original partner, "a man named Gray."

Hamilton nevertheless retained ownership of mining property in the area until:

After an ill-fated stock promotion attempt in 1907 by the Tiger Head Mining Company, the Antelope Mining Company acquired most of the claims in 1908, selling them to the Tropico Mining and Milling Company in 1909.

The Tropico Company was so named because several stockholders were from Tropico, California (located near Forest Lawn Memorial Park). V. V. Cochran was president of this company, which consolidated and patented many of the mines.

Sean Spicer Press Conference - SNL

Frederick Douglass — the black 19th century journalist

Frederick Douglass — the black 19th century journalist, dedicated feminist, and radical activist — might not be the most obvious cultural touchstone for President Donald Trump.

And yet the president made the civil rights icon uniquely relevant again this past week by name-checking him — in present-tense terminology — during a sit down with African-American supporters at the White House on the first day of Black History Month.

A photograph of Frederick Douglass from a series of "Carte de Visites" produced from his visit to Hillsdale College on January 21, 1863. Hillsdale College

"Frederick Douglass is an example of someone who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed," he said on February 1st, without elaborating with details.

Donald Trump's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Marking Black History Month, the president made some strange observations about Douglass and Martin Luther King, but mostly talked about himself.

Donald Trump's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Marking Black History Month, the president made some strange observations about Douglass and Martin Luther King, but mostly talked about himself.

By Carlos Barria / Reuters

Does Donald Trump actually know who Frederick Douglass was? The president mentioned the great abolitionist, former slave, and suffrage campaigner during a Black History Month event Wednesday morning, but there’s little to indicate that Trump knows anything about his subject, based on the rambling, vacuous commentary he offered:

“I am very proud now that we have a museum on the National Mall where people can learn about Reverend King, so many other things, Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and millions more black Americans who made America what it is today. Big impact.” Within moments, he was off-topic, talking about some of his favorite subjects: CNN, himself, and his feud with CNN.

Trump’s comments about King were less transparently empty but maybe even stranger. “Last month we celebrated the life Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., whose incredible example is unique in American history,” Trump said, employing a favorite meaningless adjective. But this wasn’t really about King. It was about Trump: “You read all about Martin Luther King when somebody said I took a statue out of my office. And it turned out that that was fake news. The statue is cherished. It’s one of the favorite things—and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, and we have Jefferson, and we have Dr. Martin Luther King.”

Even beyond the strange aside about Douglass and the digression from King, Trump’s comments point to the superficiality of his engagement with African American culture. He named perhaps the four most famous figures in black history with no meaningful elaboration. (Trump was reading from a sheet, but at least he was able to name Tubman, unlike his vanquished rival Gary Johnson.)

In a way, Trump isn’t totally wrong about Douglass “getting recognized more and more,” though one is left to scratch one’s head at where precisely he noticed that. Douglass’s heyday of influence was in the mid to late 19th century—when he was also among The Atlantic’s biggest-name writers—but he may be better known than ever among the broadest swath of the American public thanks to his ascension into the Pantheon of black history figures taught in schools since the United States established Black History Month in 1976.

It is a real and praiseworthy accomplishment for Douglass’s name to keep spreading. But the frequent, and often valid, critique of Black History Month is that it encourages a tokenist approach to African American culture, leading everyone from national leaders to elementary-school teachers to recite a catechism of well-known figures, producing both shallow engagement and privileging a passé Great Man (and Woman) theory of history. Hardly any politician is immune to this; faced with the necessity of holding an event to mark the month, they too recite the list. But even by that standard, Trump’s comments are laughably vacuous.

George W. Bush, for example, recalled in 2002 how February was “the month in which Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born, two men, very different, who together ended slavery.” Bill Clinton exhorted audiences to visit Douglass’s home in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood, at a time when that was well-off the beaten tourist path. George H.W. Bush admired Jacob Lawrence’s depiction of Douglass. Ronald Reagan repeatedly quoted Douglass in his own remarks, and was fond of boasting that Douglass was a fellow Republican.

The gulf between Trump and his predecessors is particularly poignant, of course, in the wake of the presidency of Barack Obama, a man who by virtue of his own skin color never had to resort to the detached tributes of white presidents. When the museum Trump cited opened, Obama spoke, saying as only he could have:

Yes, African Americans have felt the cold weight of shackles and the stinging lash of the field whip. But we've also dared to run north and sing songs from Harriet Tubman's hymnal. We've buttoned up our Union Blues to join the fight for our freedom. We've railed against injustice for decade upon decade, a lifetime of struggle and progress and enlightenment that we see etched in Frederick Douglass's mighty, leonine gaze.

Trump, by contrast, has long spoken of the black community in fundamentally instrumental terms, from his business career to his political one. African Americans were a monolithic demographic to be won or lost, depending on the occasion. The young real-estate developer first made headlines when the Trump Organization was accused of working to keep blacks out of its real-estate developments; the company eventually settled with the Justice Department without admitting guilt. The question in that case was not the personal prejudices (absent or present) of Trump and his father Fred. Instead, the company appeared to have decided that blacks were bad for business and would drive out white tenants, so the Trumps allegedly opted to keep them out.

During the campaign, Trump viewed black voters with similarly cool detachment. He spoke about blacks and other minorities in conspicuously distancing terms, as “they” and “them.” His leading black surrogates included Omarosa, most famous for appearing on The Apprentice with Trump, and Don King, a clownish and past-his-prime boxing promoter notable for killing two men; Hillary Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, called on LeBron James, Beyonce, and Obama. When Trump spotted a black man at a rally in California, he called out, “Oh, look at my African American over here. Look at him. Are you the greatest?”

When Trump decided announced a black-voter outreach operation, he mostly delivered his message to overwhelmingly white audiences in overwhelmingly white locales, and employed a series of racist and outdated stereotypes about inner-city crime, poverty, and lack of education, in what he appeared to believe represented benign patronization. Meanwhile, his own aides told reporters their political goal was to suppress black votes by encouraging African Americans to sit the election out.

In the end, Trump won 8 percent of the black vote, according to exit polling, besting Mitt Romney’s showing against Barack Obama but falling well short of the recent GOP high-water mark of 17 percent in 1976 (to say nothing of his prediction that he’d win 95 percent of African Americans in his 2020 campaign).

Trump continues to indicate he holds a view of black Americans that is instrumental, as he showed on Wednesday at his Black History Month event. “If you remember, I wasn’t going to do well with the African American community, and after they heard me speaking and talking about the inner city and lots of other things, we ended up getting, I won’t get into details, but we ended up getting substantially more than other candidates who have run in the past years,” he said, somewhat misleadingly. “And now we’re going to take that to new levels.” February might be Black History Month, but every month is Trump History Month.