How Sunday’s Celebrity Apprentice highlighted Donald Trump’s problems with women and race

By Eric Deggans (TampaBay.com) – Talk about awful timing: In a media moment where even straight-arrow political reporter Bob Schieffer is calling his statements about the president racist, reality TV star and possible presidential candidate Donald Trump presided over an episode of Celebrity Apprentice Sunday in which all three black women still on the show were fired in two hours.

And the last ejection shown Sunday, of manipulative attorney/TV host Star Jones, left little doubt how Trump’s dismissive attitude towards women affects his decisions on the NBC show.

…. Then came the fight over “sweetie.” That’s the word Meat Loaf used while bickering with Jones, after it was obvious that one of the two of them was going home. Any male who hasn’t been locked in a bubble of rock ‘n’ roll and celebrity for the last 20 years, knows using a term like that with a professional woman in an emotional argument will be taken as nothing less than trying to diminish and disregard her using sexist language (in fact, country star John Rich nearly punched Gary Busey for calling him “boy” in a similar situation earlier in the show)

But when Jones complained about that reference to Trump back in the boardroom (“If…you’re going to diminish me by calling me honey, sweetie or baby, I’m going to call you on it.”), he was downright dismissive of her arguments.

“You can’t get along with NeNe, and now you can’t get along (with Meat Loaf),” he told Jones, while assuring her she’d probably been called worse names. “You shouldn’t be overly crazy about Meat Loaf.”

Hmmm. She can’t get along with others. She’s “overly crazy.” Sounds a lot like a certain black female stereotype The Apprentice loves to foster. Click here to read Eric Deggans’ entire column (The Feed).