It seems that ever since Donald Trump was elected, more and more Americans began to feel comfortable with expressing their racist ideas, and some even acting upon them. Not only have I seen this happen across social media platforms and all over the news, but I have experienced it first-hand.
I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yes, the Amish country of the United States. I went to a predominantly white high school, where my peers were all pro-Trump. We had a mock election prior to the presidential one, where more than 3/4 of the school voted for Donald Trump. When Trump won the presidential election, I felt everything shift. I began seeing more and more confederate flags while walking down the halls, and people even brought a huge one to a sports game and waved it across the stands. I began hearing more white people saying the n-word unapologetically. A few days after the election, I was standing at the bus stop by my house to go to work. Out of nowhere, a red pick-up truck drives past me, and the driver shouts at me, “F*** you, n*****!” I never felt so unsafe in a community I called my home.
I was shocked to see so many people express their racist ideologies, only days after America elected a new president. It was almost as if the prior 8 years of having a Black president never happened. This new election allowed people to feel more comfortable with being racist. They didn’t have to hide it anymore– after all, their president pretty much condoned it. This election was the beginning to a more racist America. After thinking we became a post-racial society, we went back to where we began. This leads me to believe that America may never get to the point of actually becoming a post-racial society, and as a black woman living in this country, it worries me deeply. 