MLK’s nephew, Isaac Farris Jr., still says Trump is not a racist

President Donald J. Trump (C), alongside president for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center Isaac Newton Farris, Jr.(R) and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (L), speaks before signing a proclamation to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The President did not respond to shouted questions about whether he is a racist, in response to his referring to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries."

President Donald J. Trump (C), alongside president for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center Isaac Newton Farris, Jr.(R) and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson (L), speaks before signing a proclamation to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The President did not respond to shouted questions about whether he is a racist, in response to his referring to Haiti and African nations as "shithole countries."

Isaac Newton Farris Jr., the nephew of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday stood behind his comments last week that President Trump is not a racist “in the traditional sense that we have known racists.”

In a late night interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Farris said he didn’t think Trump “looks at people who don’t look like him or come from a different culture as being less than a human being. That’s what we were confronted with in 1960. Donald Trump is not walking around saying we should have a segregated society. Now, that’s not to say that the other things he’s said we should be jumping up with joy about.”

Trump was widely rebuked after he allegedly referred to Africa and Haiti as “shithole countries” during a heated  closed-door meeting on immigration . He also questioned why the United States didn’t welcome more people from places like Norway instead.

Trump has denied making the vulgar comment.

RelatedFaith leaders say Trump's alleged comments are disgusting

Farris came under fire for his comment that Trump is not a racist for a number of reasons, perhaps the biggest because he is a member of the King family, which has long been involved in the fight for civil and human rights. His mother, Christine King Farris, is King’s sister.

Trump’s alleged comments also came ahead of the King national holiday, during which the nation observed the birth of the Atlanta-born civil rights leader, who was assassinated five decades ago this year.

Related:  Perdue changes course on Trump's alleged vulgar comments

There is contention whether Trump made the comment.

U.S. Sen. David Perdue at first said he couldn’t recall whether the president referred to Haiti and African nations in certain vulgar terms, but later reversed course and said he didn’t.

However, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a  Democrat from Illinois , who went public with accusations about Trump using the language insists he did.

“To me, this is the example of the problem that we’re having,” said Farris, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the meeting “you had two sets of people who heard things differently...I’m not saying he does not say racist stuff, but I’m trying to tell you, that it’s possible to say something racist and not be racist yourself or intending to be racist.”

So what is a racist?

To Farris, it’s “someone who makes a judgement about another person’s humanity based on their race or culture...I don’t think it’s a question in Donald Trump’s mind whether Haitians are human beings. I think in Donald Trump’s mind he’s misinformed about the culture of Haitians.”

Critics, however, say it’s not just that meeting that’s at issue.

Trump pushed the birther theory that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

He painted many Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

Trump blamed both sides for the deadly violence last year in Charlottesville, Va. "I've condemned many different groups," he said during a press conference. "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch."

Farris said he raised the issue of Trump’s alleged comments during a 30-minute meeting with the president, vice president and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson before the proclamation signing.

During the meeting, Farris said he asked the president whether he made the remark and he insisted he had not.

Also at that meeting Carson brought up the high education level of Nigerians who come into this nation, something that Farris said he was unaware of until then.

Farris said he and Trump discussed meeting again, although he declined to give specifics.

He said people shouldn’t think he’s naive.

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” Farris said. I’ve grown up going to the White House...I wasn’t in there sucking up to the president.”

The Rev. Shanan E. Jones, senior pastor of The Gathering Baptist Church in College Park, has known Farris and his family for years and respects the sacrifices the family has made for civil and human rights.

The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, addresses the public, along with other Atlanta clergy, to condemn the “vile and racist” remarks made by President Donald Trump at the historic pulpit in Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (REANN HUBER/REANN.HUBER@AJC.COM)

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He strongly disagrees, though, with his thinking that Trump is not a racist.

“I don’t think he’s a racist, I know he’s a racist,” Jones said. “I don’t think he’s an ignorant man. This is the president of the United States of America, not the president of the neighborhood association. You don’t get to be president of the United States without understanding things about yourself.”

He said Trump has used “dog whistle politics” to rally his base and “we have to challenge him. We can’t back away from it.”

Jones is married to a Haitian American. There are engineers in her family, physicians and people with advanced degrees, he said. “They are not shithole people and they don’t come from a shithole country.”