President Donald Trump contradicted his chief of staff over a border wall with Mexico. John Kelly described Trump's views as "an evolutionary process," but Trump tweeted that his views "never changed or evolved" from when he was campaigning. (Jan. 18) AP


This NBA season, the Milwaukee Bucks' most memorable game happened in only the third game of the year. Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo led a furious comeback against the Portland Trailblazers, ending in a victory and a career-high 44 points.

But the game itself was only half the story. Back in the locker room, Giannis' teammates handed him the game ball. The 22-year-old star took a black permanent marker and began writing on the ball.

"This is for Daddy we got a win tonight and I got 44 points," he wrote.

Giannis' father, Charles, had died just three weeks earlier.

In 1991, Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo fled Nigeria for Greece, where Giannis was born in 1994. Charles settled the family in a neighborhood just north of Athens, where the Antetokounmpos were the only black family for several blocks. While Giannis' parents struggled to find work, the future NBA star and his brothers famously sold watches, bags and sunglasses on the street to be able to afford food.

Such is the immigrant experience upon which the president of the United States cast aspersions last week. At a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office, Donald Trump reportedly wondered aloud why America accepts so many people from "shithole countries" like Haiti or those in Africa, reportedly expressing a preference for immigrants from places like Norway. (Trump denied he used the derogatory term, saying only that he used "tough" language.)

While much of the deserved derision has been focused on Trump's use of profanity, his true transgression is believing certain countries are less desirable because of the type of people who live there. There are war-torn African countries where life is unbearable, but nobody actually believes Trump knows the nuances that differentiate each nation and their people. It seems the president believes all are third-world nations because of the skin color of the people who live there.

It’s the same type of bigotry faced by the Antetokounmpos after Charles and Veronica moved to Greece, when abuse against black immigrants gained intensity after the country's economy collapsed and competition for jobs grew. Even after the Bucks drafted Giannis in 2013, an extreme-right Greek politician compared the new NBA player to a "chimpanzee" and said his family should have been ordered to a detention center.

Trump is clueless about the value immigrants from African countries bring to America. They often bring strong families, a tireless work ethic and a love for America unmatched even by citizens born here. (Take one trip in a Washington, D.C., taxi, and you'll realize that nobody loves this country more than a cab driver who recently fled Ghana.)

Additionally, many African immigrants bring the brainpower America needs to remain the world's leader in innovation. Nigerian immigrants make up about just under 1 percent of America's black population but around 10 percent of the nation's black physicians. According to Yale researchers Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, between 20 percent and 25 percent of the 120 black students at Harvard Business School in 2010 were Nigerian. "As early as 1999, Nigerians were overrepresented among black students at elite American colleges and universities by a factor of about 10," Chua and Rubenfeld write in their book, "The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America."

Smarts and work ethic translate into higher incomes. In 2014, nearly 25 percent of Nigerian-American households made more than $100,000 a year. That year, the median Nigerian-American household income was $58,000, compared with the national median of $51,000. More than half of America's citizens would have been financially better off if they had been Nigerian immigrants.

Further, it should reflect favorably on these well-educated Africans and Haitians that they would want to leave their current situation and make better lives for themselves. Even if they do flee dangerous countries such as Somalia or Sudan, the point is that they are dying to leave. They reject what they see and want to live like Americans — probably more so than many Norwegians.

Of course, not every native Nigerian immigrant can be a freakish 7-foot-tall athlete like Giannis Antetokounmpo. But they can be as dedicated, family-oriented and hardworking as he is. Without his mother and father breaking free and seeking better fortunes, America might have missed out on its most precocious, winsome athlete.

In 2016, Giannis signed a new four-year, $100 million contract. He's currently battling LeBron James for the top place in All-Star game fan voting. If he continues this trajectory, he could end up making more money than any athlete in American history.

Then Donald Trump will be able to see what a genuine billionaire looks like.

You can contact Christian Schneider at

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