Can you imagine what would have happened to a Black man who showed up at a Donald Trump rally acting “suspiciously” around the metal detectors?

It is no secret to any conscious American why the 20-year-old shooter of Trump was not stopped at the entrance of the July 13 event in Butler, Pa. 

There is a reason that Crooks was reportedly not interrogated for identification. He was not chased, not followed; not heavily surveilled as he climbed to the roof of a building and aimed an AR-15 styled rifle only about 130 yards away from where Trump was speaking.

It is evident by only a brief review of recent American history that the reason Crooks was not stopped at the gate and caught before he pulled the trigger was because he was white. Period. Once again, it was the lone white male syndrome.

There is no question that had Crooks been a Black man, he would have been commanded to show identification. Had he not concurred, he would have been wrestled to the ground and likely shot dead or choked to death like D’Vontaye Mitchell, who was killed by hotel security June 30 right there in Milwaukee, Wis. where the Republican National Convention is being held this week.

Unlike Trayvon Martin, 17, out for Skittles and iced tea in Florida; Tamir Rice, 12, with a toy gun in Ohio; or Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, in his own apartment in Georgia, among dozens of other household names, Crooks was somehow given the benefit of the doubt, allowed to slide on by.

It ultimately ended with Crooks shooting and wounding Trump in an assassination attempt, killing retired fire- fighter Cory Compechello and critically injuring two other people before he was killed by a police sniper.

As authorities now intensely investigate, the debacle has been described as an “epic failure” of security, mainly the Secret Service. But we all know what it really was. The failure of security was catastrophic because Crooks was white.

President Biden quickly took authority, met with Homeland Security, the FBI and Secret Service and promised the nation a thorough investigation.

But, Americans have witnessed this all too familiar scenario many times before. When thousands of predominantly white Confederate flag-waving Trump supporters headed for Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, none of the federal law enforcement agencies responded with the appropriate level of force, resulting in the violent Jan. 6 attack and insurrection.

Clearly, had those rioters been Black, the Capitol Police and other security agencies would have been prepared in advance with military force, dogs and high-powered rifles.

Fortunately, the would-be Trump assassin did not succeed although a family man took the bullet and died. Trump, shot across the top of his right ear, escaped serious injury and was given a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention this week. In an iconic photo seen around the world, he pumped his fist seconds after the shooting, shouting to the crowd, “fight, fight, fight!”

But fight for what?

Ironically, it has been Trump himself who has been a ringleader in fanning the fumes of racism and white supremacy in America.

• He implied that the Central Park Five, Black and Latino men who were ultimately exonerated of rape after a wrongful conviction, deserved the death penalty.

Trump has never apologized.

• He led the birther movement claiming President Obama was not born in the U. S.

• He called Haiti and African nations “sh*thole countries.”

• He called football players protesting wrongful police killings of Black men and women “sons of bitches.”

• During the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally that drew White supremacists from across the country in 2017, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

• And most recently, during the CNN debate against

President Biden, he referred to “Black jobs,” apparently espousing a stereotype that he has yet to explain.

Thankfully, Trump survived the assassination attempt. But the fact is that the so far unrepentant former president was nearly killed by the same evil that he has helped perpetuate.

The writer is editor-in-chief of the Trice Edney News Wire.