Stranded With Trump

Donald Trump’s win may have come as a shock for many, but it is impossible that this kind of intolerance was born overnight. It had always been there, but his inflammatory speeches and lack of political correctness is bringing them out of the shadows at an alarming rate, says Debanjali Bose.

Wednesday morning, I made a frantic phone call to my mother in India with the kind of desperation that I normally reserve for medical emergencies. Donald Trump, an egocentric millionaire from New York, my home, had been named the President of the United States. He had built his entire campaign off of targeting minorities repeatedly. I am a brown, immigrant woman. I am the holy trinity of unholiness in Trump’s America, which is something that I didn’t see longer than I would like to admit because I live in a evanescent bubble with all my Ivy-league educated friends and liberal colleagues. For the first time since arriving here, I felt unsafe and unwanted.

 

The single most important elevator ride at this moment in time is the one Trump took before announcing his candidacy. Pompous and incredulous, much like his entire personality, many people, including me, did not take it seriously. Shortly afterwards, I left India for New York and one of the first conversations I remember having with my new classmates was how his candidacy was a big joke. We were confident that he would try to fire the moderator at the first Republican debate and then quit. Our glee from a year and a half ago was matched very closely by the disbelief I felt on Tuesday as I watched Trump steadily widening the gap between him and Hillary.

We were confident that he would try to fire the moderator at the first Republican debate and then quit. Our glee from a year and a half ago was matched very closely by the disbelief I felt on Tuesday as I watched Trump steadily widening the gap between him and Hillary.

Since my move to the United States, I have lived and worked out of Manhattan. I attended Columbia University, which, with its rich student history against racism and apartheid, has always encouraged plurality. I am a graduate of the journalism school, where we are taught to listen carefully to all voices without being dismissive and, above all, speak truth to power. I have reported on gun violence and homelessness amongst female veterans. There have been several uncomfortable moments. For example, my co-producer and I spent four hours next to the dead body of a 16-yr old gun violence victim who, his coroner insisted, need a cap during his funeral because it would be too gory otherwise. I blended in and out of communities pretty seamlessly. I never, once, felt like I didn’t belong somewhere.

 

At school, most of my peers were either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders supporters. If there were any Trump supporters, they did a good job of hiding it, which, now, given the circumstances and the proven power of ‘the silent majority’ does not seem that improbable. After Bernie’s loss to Hillary in the primaries, one classmate expressed over Facebook that he might inch towards the Trump camp. It got ugly faster than you can say ‘Bernie bro’. There was a lot of name-calling and un-friending. To me, it was analogous to a vegan suddenly eating nothing but bacon. But, it was still just one person amongst hundreds, I assumed, who were anti-Trump and it wasn’t threatening enough. When the contest was between Hillary and Bernie, there were more people leaning towards the latter because he came across as more genuine and likeable. After the DNC, when Hillary was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate, people took to her, gradually, because #neverTrump was a particularly powerful hashtag.

 

During commencement, journalist Jorge Ramos and UN General Secretary Ban-Ki Moon came to speak to us. They motivated us to take a stand against flat-out hatred. They never mentioned a particular name but it was not secret who they were talking about.

They motivated us to take a stand against flat-out hatred. They never mentioned a particular name but it was not secret who they were talking about.

Back home in India, I always felt like I was under a giant magnifying glass whether it was for my career, wardrobe, hair, skin tone or waist size. On the other side of the pond, the reservations I always carried with me about those things, slowly disappeared. I felt less conscious. Maybe it is because there are so many people in this city, or maybe it’s because every single person in that crowd is busy. At any rate, New York is a liberal safe haven. A few days after the election results were declared, Mayor Bill De Blasio announced that his office would fight any attempts from the Trump administration to deport people in the city, to dismantle reproductive rights or repeal ObamaCare. Everyone I know is an extension of that liberal belief system. Maybe that is why I cringed every time CNN had an update on election night.

Everyone I know is an extension of that liberal belief system. Maybe that is why I cringed every time CNN had an update on election night.

 

The first time I stepped outside this liberal bubble was during a reporting trip to Mississippi last spring. Before that, I had only visited other big cities like San Diego, San Francisco and Washington DC. I had been told that ‘real America’ wasn’t just concentrated in the cities Bollywood likes to visit to shoot movies that could have been shot literally anywhere else. ‘Real America’ of white picket fences is a whole other world, lacking the kombucha and industrial-warehouse-turned-beer-garden that I had grown so used to.

‘Real America’ of white picket fences is a whole other world, lacking the kombucha and industrial-warehouse-turned-beer-garden that I had grown so used to.

 

Jackson, Mississippi was an interesting place. People spoke with a southern drawl and ate at restaurants disguised as quaint little houses. There were stray incidents that reminded me of India. For example, several times, people assumed that my male colleague and I were a married couple and addressed us as such because we were the only people on the reporting trip. Other than that minor annoyance, there wasn’t anything to write home about. Then, our penultimate day in Mississippi rolled around, and I was reporting from a municipal courthouse. After the morning session was over, I hung around to speak with the public defendant and prosecutor, both of whom were white.

 

‘He’s a Trump supporter, you know’, the prosecutor told me pointing at the public defender. ‘Actually, he’s a Trump supporter. I support Ted Cruz. Which should tell you how conservative I am’, the public defender responded with a chuckle pointing back at the prosecutor. That was the first time I had met a Trump supporter in the flesh. Before that, I had assumed that because everyone I knew was a liberal Democrat, he couldn’t have had that many supporters, right? To quote Trump, ‘WRONG.’

That was the first time I had met a Trump supporter in the flesh. Before that, I had assumed that because everyone I knew was a liberal Democrat, he couldn’t have had that many supporters, right? To quote Trump, ‘WRONG.’

They proceeded to talk to me about the people they meet and prosecute/defend and the defender said ‘Well, if you commit a crime, you have to take the punishment, don’t you?’ I should probably mention that the whole point of the trip was to dive deeper into the allegations of implicit bias/racism whereby people of colour are met with harsher law enforcement techniques than their light skin counterparts. The conversation slowly veered towards Michael Brown and the grand jury at Ferguson, Missouri. ‘He absolutely committed a crime. The police officer was proven innocent. They just love to complain all the time. Now you tell me, if a police officer is black, is he racist too?’ he asked. I smiled uncomfortably. Later at lunch, he was complaining about how, if he gave away that he was a prosecutor and wore his ornate ring, he always got bad service at a popular fast food join. ‘You know, because of that thing, we were talking about.’ he told me casually with a smile, like we shared an inside joke. That was when I realised that he thought I, a young, brown, immigrant was on the same side of that argument about race identity as him.

 

After returning to New York, I asked a Professor why he would make that assumption. ‘When they see you, they see your straight hair; your Ivy-League education, nice clothes and that you live in New York. They don’t think of you as minority’, she said. She was right. There was a narrow idea of the ‘other’ and the ‘unwanted’ that ran throughout the rhetoric that Trump used in his campaign. When he said ‘immigrants’, he meant Mexican immigrants and when he said ‘illegal’ immigrants, he used the image of people walking into US borders.

There was a narrow idea of the ‘other’ and the ‘unwanted’ that ran throughout the rhetoric that Trump used in his campaign. When he said ‘immigrants’, he meant Mexican immigrants and when he said ‘illegal’ immigrants, he used the image of people walking into US borders.

Hence, all the hullabaloo about ‘the wall’ while completely ignoring the fact that most undocumented immigrants actually start off exactly like me, with all the right papers, but then overstay their visa.

 

The conversation in Mississippi made me think that maybe I am that opposed to the ‘deplorables’ simply because I have not met that many of them in real life. Whatever I had seen were portraits painted on CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. They were all very monolithic, with their red baseball hats demanding that Trump ‘Build that wall’, ‘Trump that bitch’ and ‘Lock her up.’ After the election, I turned to my classmate, Sarah Bellingham, for some comfort. She had been reporting on his supporters in Bucks County, which was the most critical swing county in Pennsylvania. I asked her about her experience, hoping she would say something contrary to that portrait, something that would give me some peace of mind.

 

She said that most of them have nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ of, maybe, the 1950s, where there is disconnectedness from people of colour and sexism is just a part of life. The media played a huge role, she agrees. The Republican Party has for decades condemned the ‘liberal media’ and asked people to stay away from it. Every time, a new scandal broke about Trump, his supporters felt persecuted and it drove them towards him even harder.

The Republican Party has for decades condemned the ‘liberal media’ and asked people to stay away from it. Every time, a new scandal broke about Trump, his supporters felt persecuted and it drove them towards him even harder.

This vaguely reminded me of a comment on Facebook after Washington Post leaked the infamous Access Hollywood tape. It said ‘Now, more than ever, my mind’s made up for Trump.’ She went on to tell me about closed doors and the open hostility she faced at Trump rallies. ‘Fucking paparazzi’. Not that this last bit was surprising at all given Trump’s open hostility towards The New York Times and Washington Post and his refusal to grant press access.

 

There is a lot of debate and analysis about exactly what the pollsters and Democrats got wrong in their election predictions. It is true that a lot of the people who voted for Trump felt like they had been neglected by people in power for too long and yearned for change, some even say that they see in Trump the same kind of possibility for change that they saw in Obama. While it is an acceptable argument, there is no excuse for the kind of hatred that fuelled his campaign.

It is true that a lot of the people who voted for Trump felt like they had been neglected by people in power for too long and yearned for change, some even say that they see in Trump the same kind of possibility for change that they saw in Obama. While it is an acceptable argument, there is no excuse for the kind of hatred that fuelled his campaign.

He has made fun of and incited hatred against immigrants, differently-abled reporters, women, people practicing Islam, and even babies. After he won, there have been disturbing reports of students in blackface and middle school children chanting ‘build that wall’. It is impossible that this kind of intolerance was born overnight. It had always been there, but his inflammatory speeches and lack of political correctness is bringing them out of the shadows at an alarming rate.

 

After graduation, I briefly worked on a documentary about abortion rights for black women. Both Trump and his vice-president, Mike Pence, are pro-life. I sent my boss a text asking ‘What do you think will happen to Roe v Wade?’ Roe v Wade is the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal. ‘I think it’s gone, doll. I’m still in shock.’ she replied. We all will be for a while.

 

 

Image via fusion.net