Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump react as they watch the election results during Trump’s election night rally, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP/John Locher.
[…] America’s demographics are changing, and they’re changing quickly. By 2055, there will no longer be a single racial or ethnic majority in the United States and 14 percent of the country will be foreign born, according to the Pew Research Center. Forty-three percent of Millennials are people of color.
Let’s be clear: This is scaring white voters. White people believe that they are more often the victims of racism than black people, according to a 2011 new study from researchers at Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. The research also found that white voters perceived social progress for people of color to be much swifter than it actually is.
The authors wrote, “These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality — at their expense.”
Research has also established that as U.S. demographics shift, the pro-white and racist attitudes of white people become more apparent, according to a study from New York University and Northwestern University. The same researchers also found those who read about these demographic changes often are generally more supportive of conservative policies and more likely to identify as conservative.
Throughout history, there are many examples of how the racism of white voters has been mobilized to favor a candidate for president. We saw Barry Goldwater and President Richard Nixon employ the Southern Strategy, which took advantage of white people’s anxieties about the economic and social advancement of people of color. Writing in Slate, Jamelle Bouie describes this pattern of progress and white backlash, starting with the Reconstruction:
Like clockwork, white Americans embraced a man who promised a kind of supremacy. We haven’t left our long cycle of progress and backlash. We are still the country that produced George Wallace. We are still the country that killed Emmett Till.
We have also seen these fears manifest themselves overseas as European far-right political parties with anti-immigrant sentiments win historic victories.
The fear of white voters — the fear we will no longer be at the center of American politics and culture, having our needs tended to first, and the fear that we will be asked to acknowledge our role in white supremacy and to stop doing harm to people of color, whether it be violence or perpetuating racist stereotypes — has always been there. Now, we need to acknowledge that it is largely what motivated Trump voters. A majority of Trump supporters said they saw black people as “less evolved” than white people, according to a Slate survey with a sample of 2,000 non-Hispanic white people.
When we say that class is what takes a Trump voter from dangerous to misguided and confused, we are condescending to low-income people living in rural areas. By doing this, the media takes away their agency and suggests they didn’t know any better. But they know exactly what they have done. […]
Yes, they do know exactly what they’ve done, and they all have their little justifications for doing it, and it all goes back to the comfort of being on top of the people pile, being assured that yes, of course white people are superior, and you have every right in the world to stomp all over those others. My state, nDakota, had a great deal to do with Trump being elected, and I can’t even begin to express how uncomfortable I am right now, how much anxiety and fear fills me whenever I look at any white person in this state, knowing there’s a high probability they voted for that xenophobic, homophobic bigot, open racist, a rapist, a sexual predator, a con man, an open fraud, a sociopath, pathological liar, climate change denier and ignorant asspimple. Much like my country, my home [state] has disappeared, swallowed whole by intolerant assholes who think they are owed the right to stomp on other people, to oppress, to marginalize, to own, to rule. There just aren’t enough fucks in the universe for those of you to whom nothing was more important than your shallow need to control other people, to safeguard your racism. *spits*
I call bullshit on that stat.
I don’t buy for a second that a majority of Trump voters believe in evolution…
I’m very tired of your assholish trolling. You’re in moderation for a while. -- Caine.
Caine, I’ve mentioned before in comments that I grew up in North Dakota. 84.5% of the vote went for Trump in my home county of Slope. I would be filled with anxiety looking at white people from that state. (I’ve had anxiety looking at white people in the liberal part of Iowa I live in now.) And I’m white! And straight and male and college educated…I have a lot of privilege to help me get through this. It’s hard for me to even fathom what you must feel like to have the fear added on top of that (and the extra anxiety that would go with that fear). I feel really sorry for you and all people of color that you have to deal with this. :( *hugs*
As for sonofrojblake…if you were trying to be funny, that’s totally not funny. It’s not like they don’t or won’t use the terminology just because they don’t accept the science.
Leo, thanks for that. As for being a straight white male, right now, I don’t think you’re safe either, because those who love Trump don’t like anyone who isn’t for him. This is one terrifying division we’re all looking at. We all have to stand up, even more than before, but it isn’t going to be easy for any of us. Who in their right mind wants to go up against armed asshole bigots?
I don’t buy it that white people think they are more victimized by racism than are black people. Maybe a few do, but as for the rest, I think they are grabbing on to any argument churned out by the likes of Fox News and the hate spewing talk radio garbage people. For them, it’s fun to say such absurd things and bellow in outrage.
I think they know damned well that they benefit from racism and they like it. I don’t even think that hate is necessarily at the bottom of the racism of a lot of them. They just don’t care. They don’t care who is suffering, just as long as they don’t wiggle too much when the whites step on them.
I don’t know what to do with the fact that 47% of the voters voted for Trump. I am sickened by it. The word “humane” has the wrong meaning attached to it.
fledanow:
I agree. There is a lot of fear at the bottom of it, though. There are a lot of white people in nDakota who have never seen a black person, let alone know one, they get all their ideas about black people from television. There’s been a *tiny* uptick of black people in nDakota now, in the vast sea of whiteness, mostly because of oil, and I imagine that’s got people here quite upsetty. Well, white people. Around here, the nDakota Nice is always important, so I doubt persons of colour have met with much overt bigotry,* but it’s there, along with the fear.
*Although Rick has come up against loud, nasty bigotry against people of colour where he works. He always tries to counter it, but it can be overwhelming.
But see, it’s not really their fault. The other side nominated Hillary Clinton so they got really confused about whether racism is wrong or not and ended up voting for the pro-torture rape-glorifying white supremacist.
Can 2055 hurry up already?
Saad:
I wish to hell it would, and I wish it would happen much sooner. I doubt I’m gonna make it to 98 years old.
I’m disturbed and disgusted by the incidents of racism that I’ve read about via FB -- in schoolchildren, on school walls, during every day mundane activities. This is the kind of people who empowered right now.
In addition to not living in the USAmerica, I can only echo Leo:
What Leo and rq said. Remember we love you.
Giliell:
I know, and I can’t thank you enough. My love right back to you. We’re all scared, and we all have reason to be. It’s going to be a while before most of us can gather our strength to withstand whatever comes.
The kids are getting their Canadian passports as soon as the overtime comes in. Which cannot be soon enough. I rely on the Canadian immigration system to pull Husband along with us, should the need arise.
rq:
Good, I’m really glad to hear that.
to Caine @ 5
You said, “There is a lot of fear at the bottom of it, though.”
I don’t get this. I just don’t get it. I’m afraid of spiders; phobic, actually. But that’s because I can’t have a conversation with them. However, I can observe them and unless a spider makes a beeline toward me with the clear intention of pumping me full of lethal venom, I can live quite contentedly with a spider in the same room. I just can’t look at a picture of one.
You may remember I’m white. I’ve met plenty of frightening people, and their scariness does not correlate with their so-called race. I know I sound stupid, but even though NDakotans may not have met many Black people, or bothered to talk with their First Nations neighbours, they’ve had lots of opportunity to observe people sitting around having coffee and laughing with friends, holding their children’s hands as they cross the road, weeping at funerals, dancing to bring in the New Year. And I bet none of those scary people stopped what they were doing to come over and attack them.
There has to be a “machine” continuously promoting that fear . This costs money and time and energy and I don’t know why whoever keeps that machine running thinks it worthwhile. And i don’t know why so-called non-racist people with equal amounts of money and power are so desultory about combatting this machine.
fledanow:
I’m white enough myself, the outside in particular. It makes me even more uncomfortable, because a lot of people will assume I’m one of them, when I’m not.
When it comes to nDakota, it’s incredibly insular here. All the people they know? White. Most of ’em family of some sort. They do not transfer all those regular people things over to non-white people, at least not automatically. If they do happen to meet a person of colour, most of the people here will still have a “oh yeah, great person, good worker, for a _____” in their head. Of course, there’s time to work that out of people, but only if there is exposure to other people, to other cultures. That doesn’t happen much here at all. Especially when you’re talking rural, which is most of nDakota.
You are probably right. But I just cannot accept putting all that destructiveness down to stupidity and lack of imagination. I believe people have a responsibility to look within and root out that which is harmful to others, a continuous task. And these people are not doing that work. To me, they are choosing to remain petty, mean, and cruel and I do not want to let them off the hook or empathize with them.
FYI: This article was one (of many) that I listed as influencers in my latest blog post:
https://sjdorst.wordpress.com/2016/11/11/regarding-trumps-election-we-listened-to-the-wrong-people/
I hope you get a few more readers out of it!
Hi ya, Steven, thanks!