Not-at-all-racist presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is a man full of terrific ideas, and one such terrific idea was his brainwave a decade ago to construct a season of The Apprentice around the conceit of pitting black contestants against white ones. Sadly, the world wasn’t ready for the idea, which Buzzfeed reports was inspired by long-forgotten reality show Welcome to the Neighborhood, a show that transplanted wealthy white families into poor black neighborhoods and vice versa.
This wouldn’t be especially interesting in and of itself — Trump has bad/racially insensitive/generally obnoxious idea! Who’d have thought it? — except that some audio of Trump discussing the idea on Howard Stern radio show surfaced recently. wherein Trump, Stern and Stern’s co-host Robin Quivers giggle about how politically incorrect the ideas is, and consider such important questions as “light-skinned or dark-skinned blacks” and whether the idea would set off a racial war (“No,” quoth the Donald, “because I am very diplomatic.”) The weirdest bit, though, comes toward the end of the discussion, where Trump proclaims that the black team would win because of “the extra bones.” What? Yes, says Trump, “they have nine extra bones.” Is he joking? Does he really believe that African-Americans have more bones than their white compatriots? What does it all mean? And how on earth have we gotten to a stage where there is a realistic chance of this man becoming the next President of the United States?