Donald Trump is ahead in the polls these days (that’s “ahead” as one word, but with his trademark fright wig, it’d also work as two: “a head”), so I thought I’d take a moment to bring up two factoids about him that I culled from a recent long article in the New Yorker about Atlantic City.
I’ll enumerate each item in bold, then provide the evidence by quoting directly from the article in large font. The article’s author, Nick Paumgarten, is the “I” who is interviewing Trump’s former employees in the quotes.
1. When Donald Trump interviewed potential waitresses for his Atlantic City casino, the applicants were weighed on a scale and had to wear a bathing suit – even though when they actually worked as waitresses they weren’t wearing bathing suits.
One morning, I met Dawn Inglin, who had gone to work as a cocktail waitress at the Plaza when it first opened, in 1984. … When she applied for a job at the Plaza, she auditioned for Donald Trump at Trump Tower, in Manhattan. She remembers a weigh-in, and an interview in a bathing suit, and she and the others were required to wear two-and-a-half-inch heels.
2. When Donald and Ivanna Trump visited the casinos, the casino management removed all the African American employees from the public spaces where Trump went, so that he saw only white staff. (Or at least, non-black staff.)
I met a bus driver named Kip Brown, who … used to work in the casinos, at the Showboat, bussing tables, and at Trump’s Castle, stripping and waxing floors. “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” he said. “It was the eighties, I was a teen-ager, but I remember it: they put us all in the back.”
Follow ups:
- I don’t know why the second quote is in darker font than the first. Maybe a gremlin controls the layout of the software I’m using.
- I encourage you to read the entire New Yorker article about Atlantic City. It’s a fascinating story, told with a lot of verve. And it contains additional tidbits about another presidential candidate, Chris Christie.
The thought of Trump anywhere near the White House scares me to death! A former in-law (British, now American citizen but returned to live in the UK a couple of years ago) is a Trump supporter. I’m pretty sure he will submit an absentee ballot. I respect his right to have his opinion, but we will have to agree to disagree!
Thanks for the info. I think that we’re having a bad dream. We cannot have another Hitler or any form of Wan To be world dictator as president. This is what it is not because of any one group of people but because its doors have always been opened to all peoples. SHAME on Trump to try to change that. We have to democratically show him that we are still this broad basket of apples oranges bananas and more. Love will always prevail. Remember to vote this time. No excuse. Love all