"He was a fun guy back then, she muses. I don't know what happened. Did she ever think of him as racist or sexist? No! Allen says. I didn't think it then and I wonder about it now. I wonder if that's really him or is it people that are encouraging him to act like this. It's hard to know, but we're living in a time where it's like we're in an earthquake every day here in America. We don't know what is going to happen next."
Debbie Allen recalls judging the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City alongside Donald Trump, who had recently bought and renamed an 86-metre superyacht, the Trump Princess. Trump invited Allen and her sister Phylicia Rashad aboard for a private tour, showing lavish features including a lapis lazuli bathroom, a fully equipped nightclub, and fine paintings. Allen remembers him saying she could have a party on the yacht, and she responded that any party would be all Black people. Four decades later, she struggles to reconcile the affable showman she knew with the authoritarian figure associated with current US polarization. She reflects on whether she ever considered racism or sexism at the time and wonders whether encouragement from others shapes his behavior. She describes living in constant uncertainty and compares the era’s discord to an earthquake every day.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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