… After the 2016 election, it was common to hear musings about how Midwestern voters flocked to Donald Trump because he spoke to the America they wanted to make “great” — a descriptor that many argued was code for “white.” …
Approximately seven million people who identify as African-American live in the Midwest. That means there are more black people in the Midwest than in the Northeast or the West. …
It is a bitter irony, then, that many of the arguments about Mr. Trump’s appeal to Midwesterners make sense only if you pretend black people don’t exist in the middle of the country. CONT.
Tamara Winfrey-Harris, New York Times