Professor Linda-Susan Beard on Trump's Latest Attack of an African-American

Associate Professor of English and Director of Africana Studies Linda-Susan Beard was quoted in a New York Times article about African Americans who President Donald Trump has publicly denigrated on Twitter, the latest being former White House Aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, whom he referred to as "that dog" on the social media platform.

From the article:

Linda-Susan Beard, the director of Africana Studies at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, said there is a long history in the United States of black women being compared to dogs.

“He’s drawing on a history of discourse that is so hate-filled and so historic that it all came together in these 34 words,” she said of Mr. Trump’s tweet about Ms. Manigault Newman, which was actually 35 words. “The statement is brilliant in its ability to do double duty: to offer an attack that is simultaneously racialized and gendered.”

Linda-Susan Beard negotiates between and among the worlds of African American, South African, and post-colonial literatures. She teaches courses on post-apartheid literature, literary and historical reimaginings of transatlantic slavery such as "Toni Morrison and the Art of Narrative Conjure," as well as introductory courses in English and African literatures which examine the dynamics of canon formation.