Trump has won, and it’s on all of us

This article previously appeared on The Panther Online and in its print edition, where the school was kind enough to devote almost a full page. In an effort to own up to my previous work and consolidate its location into one place, I’m including it here.

I was standing in the lobby of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts around midnight on Tuesday night when one of the custodians greeted me. She was a hardworking woman who immigrated to this country.

“Do you know who is going to be our next president?” she asked, in broken English. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes when I had to answer, “Donald Trump.”

This kind of defeat makes me reconsider everything. I’m halfway to giving up my film degree and running for office. How do we process this? Who do we blame?

Hillary Clinton? The Democratic Party? Trump’s supporters? The economy? The news media? The Electoral College? The third-party voters?

Trump will be the 45th president of the U.S., and that’s on me. It’s on all of us as Americans, Clinton and Trump supporters alike.

I’m Jewish, and I cannot help but think about Adolf Hitler. When people say that Trump won’t go through with all of his policies, I think of the Germans that voted in the 1930s. Our fellow LGBTQIA+ Americans, our fellow Muslim Americans, our fellow Hispanic and Latino Americans, they all stand to lose so much. They probably will.

We can talk about how money in politics, the broadcast media and Facebookplayed a part in the election outcome. We can talk about the racism, xenophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia … you name it.

And yet, this is still on all of us as Americans.

I’ll tell you why. Have you ever dismissed a Trump voter? Maybe you called them ignorant. I know I did. I know I didn’t talk to that man at the gas station with the “Make America Great Again” hat when he warned me about his very real fear (however wrong) of Clinton taking away his guns. That was a defining issue for him, and I brushed it off.

Your John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, Amy Schumer videos that you shared are a nice touch. Those Trump supporters that you unfollowed on Facebook or demanded unfriend you — that’s a really nice touch.

You are allowed to be angry, because you are the one who lost.

But maybe you should consider why, as Michael Moore accurately predicted, his supporters gave us “the biggest (expletive) you in human history.”

Consider what Arlie Hochschild, a liberal sociologist who spent time in red states during this election, has to say about it in an interview with Vox:

“I think supporters of the Tea Party in Louisiana have a deep story, as do Bernie Sanders supporters in Berkeley, California. We all have a deep story. And it’s important to know what these are. Because so many arguments aren’t really between one set of facts and another; they’re between one deep story and another.”

I am a straight, white, able-bodied, male who has a lot of privilege. I will never have it as hard as many people will. I’m also from a poor family and am paying for college myself. I’m also from Kansas. I was also “with her,” like most of my friends and my parents. Did the red Electoral College map show that? Does California’s blue map show the 3 million people here who voted for Trump?

There have been times when I haven’t felt welcome at Chapman for being from Kansas. Some of my fellow students have said that all Midwesterners are ignorant of social justice issues. I know there are good people there and they are not necessarily the same as the people who voted for Trump — but they can see something you clearly haven’t. We’re not flyover territory. I wonder if “privilege” is really the word we should be using. I wonder if we’re listening to empathize, or if we’re listening to reply.

Trump’s supporters may be wrong in some of our eyes, but they are afraid. Just because someone has a different view than you doesn’t mean they can’t think, or better yet, don’t want to.

You now have a choice: You can unfriend these people on Facebook. You can blame the Electoral College. You can label them as privileged, racist, sexist or whatever you want. It’s not fair of me to ask you not to do that, but it might be the only way they’ll listen. How we talk about this election is way more important than what we talk about.

After some reflection and debate amongst my peers, particularly those who are people of color, I posted this response on Facebook:

I’d like to issue a formal apology for some of the wording in my Op-Ed for The Panther. I recently reexamined the article after a comment from a friend and noticed there were changes that were slipped in under my nose and not my phrasing. The Panther was kind enough to give me a platform to speak my mind, and I thank them for that, yet I was not smart enough to triple check their “editorial tweaks.” I am very sorry.

1. I realize now that some of the article was condensed, making it seem like I don’t care about the oppression that marginalized groups go through every day. I specifically stated in my original version: “I know the last thing you want is for someone to be angry at you.” And it was taken out. This was me trying to empathize with victims a little a more.

2. The link to Arlie Hochschild’s Vox interview is misattributed to say that her time was spent in Louisiana during the election, when really it was before the election took place. I had the correct label in my unedited version.

The quote was also completely cut off (with my permission) and continues to read: “Then [Trump supporters] see people cutting ahead of them in line. Immigrants, blacks, women, refugees, public sector workers. And even an oil-drenched brown pelican getting priority. In their view, people are cutting ahead unfairly. And then in this narrative, there is Barack Obama, to the side, the line supervisor who seems to be waving these people (and the pelican) ahead. So the government seemed to be on the side of the people who were cutting in line and pushing the people in line back….

“Another thing: A lot of the people I talked to were doing really well now — but they had grown up in poverty, or their parents had, they’d struggled hard, and they’d worked hard. They were also white men, and they felt that there was no cultural sympathy for them; in fact, there was a tendency to blame the categories of whiteness and maleness. I came to realize that there is a whole sector of society in which the privilege of whiteness and maleness didn’t really trickle down. And I think we have grown highly insensitive to that fact.”

When this was taken out, the rest of the article makes it seem like I am completely condemning the use of the word “privilege” and utterly trying to get everyone to replace it whilst simultaneously creating blanket sympathy for Trump’s supporters and not empathy. It also makes me look incredibly unintelligent and ignorant. I am not trying to blame marginalized groups for Trump’s rise and say that it all rests on them and none on Trump’s supporters. I was trying to examine how we stereotype Trump supporter’s world view.

Endorsing or excusing Trump’s actions or his supporters is endorsing bigotry and oppression. We should call it out. However, I was trying to acknowledge certain factors such as a lack of agreement on what the word “racist” is. I was trying to articulate that you can be bigoted without intending to do so, and that it is still wrong, but worth noting that it is not the same as some of Trump’s more vocal supporters who actively commit hate crimes.

3. “Trump supporters may be wrong” was changed to “May be wrong in some of our eyes.” This effectively puts me on the side of Trump Supporters. Not true. At all.

4. “‘Do you know who is going to be our next President?’ she asked, struggling with her English.” was the original phrasing. Not “broken English.”

5. I was also criticizing a meme that’s going around that labels the middle of the U.S. “dumbfuckistan” which was deeply offensive to me and the whole reason I wrote the article. They took it out because it has a swear word in it. This was what I was trying to criticize more than anything. Think about how that might be offensive to a Trump voter who looks away from Fox News to Facebook to find others are calling him a “dumb hick” or “redneck” and then sees that. It’s condescending.

I will stand and fight vigorously against Trump. I will not normalize this Presidency. I will oppose bigotry every way I can.

For those who still care — especially my liberal California friends:

https://everydayfeminism.com/
This website is what I use to educate myself as much as possible. I’m always learning here.

Read Arlie Hochschild’s book: “Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning in the American Right”

Come visit one of these actual states and see for yourself.
Read Todd VanDerWerff’s excellent piece about how the Left one the culture war, and what that means for Midwesterners and small towners: http://www.vox.com/…/progressive-fundamentalism-make-americ…

A great interview with The New Yorker’s George Packer that talks about condescension and what it means to tell people “they are voting against their own interest”:
http://www.slate.com/…/how_democrats_lost_touch_with_the_wh…

A great video here from Michael Moore about the disconnect we see from Trump supporters and the American media. It’s frustrating in terms of how it talks about race, but it makes some other great points.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/…/michael-moore-morning-jo…

A great Slate article on the definition of racism and how it differs from American to American:
http://www.slate.com/…/the_people_who_look_at_trump_and_don…

A great Vox article about liberal smugness. There are largely no conservatives in education anymore, and all of the liberals have fled for the urban centers and the coast — only to condescend upon those who don’t know any better:
http://www.vox.com/20…/4/…/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

A great article entitled “How Trump Made Hate Intersectional”:
http://nymag.com/…/…/how-trump-made-hate-intersectional.html

An article entitled: “Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.”
http://www.vox.com/…/15/13595508/racism-trump-research-study

And of course, a reminder of how to use my privilege:
https://mammalianalien.wordpress.com/…/11/dear-white-liber…/