ILLUSTRATION BY SAVANNAH DONALD/STAFF ILLUSTRATOR
Jordan Smith
Opinion Columnist
[email protected]
Have we become comfortable with values that we do not agree with? Have we become comfortable with values that we do not agree with? President Donald Trump, is the highlight of every news and radio station, the topic of conversation and daily newspaper. Trump is depicted as impulsive, unpredictable and living down everyone’s expectations of how the head of state and government should behave.
He has attacked the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, delayed court proceedings on the Obama’s administration’s expansion of overtime, and repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order.
We have become the silent majority representing a non-confrontational attitude toward the policies and the practices of this nation. The released FBI reports reveal that hate crimes have jumped for its third consecutive year in a row an astonishing 17 percent dominating local and world news. Nearly three out of five hate crimes were motivated by race and ethnicity.
Trump broke out the racism that was kept quiet. Does Trump’s racial etiquette against colored individuals affect how colored people are treated? Trump was the loudest and most persistent voice to attack the nation’s first black president, he left Jews out of a Holocaust remembrance statement, funded ads that associated Native Americans with drug use and crime and has repeatedly called Mexicans rapists and criminals. He overlooks racial sensitivity.
Trump gave a false misleading claim on black employment when he said “African-American youth is an example: 59 percent unemployment rate,” banned Muslims, criticized the Black Lives Matter movement shortly after the shootings of black men in Louisiana and Alabama, criticized Puerto Ricans in a claim that “they want everything done for them,” argued that immigration was changing the “character” of the United States, but states on the anniversary of the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that he “condemns all kinds of racism.” The hatred of Trump exposed the true entitlement that whites have felt they have had for years.
Since Trump’s election, loud racists have been emboldened. There has been a 74 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes, police have been called on the innocent acts of black individuals, “build that wall” has become a recurring claim and putting immigrant children in infestation cages just diminishes the vision of America.
We have failed to actively address racial inequality but instead according to Time justified the dismissal of claims of racial inequality as simple cries of victimhood. Americans have grown comfortable with racism resting of the foundation of this country’s politics. We are blinded. Trump’s hate that is used as bait for many has heightened awareness in communities and government institutions for woke individuals.
According to Pew Research Center, nearly six-in-ten women have begun to pay increased attention to politics since Trump’s election, compared with 46 percent of men. Among the public, 15 percent of people have attended a political event, rally or protest. We have to evade the historical wounds, take on Dr. King’s dream, and reject the lie of Trump’s American dream. We must respond effectively to crimes and hate that victimize broadly across our horizons.
