While walking my dog yesterday, a man I often make small talk with at the park made the following statement with a tone of consolatory reassurance:
"Well, it's been three days and Trump hasn't ended the world yet."
I let him know that while that may be true, the daily lives of many Americans have changed thanks to the increase in violent attacks, threats, and racist slurs. I reminded him that the world did not end with 9/11 but it changed forever, and the immediate aftermath was for some of us a very scary and hurtful time. The sad truth is, Trump's America will be a scarier place than post-9/11 America was.
Racism is something I've experienced to some degree my entire life as a person of color, but it was different before 9/11 and since then. Today, I think it's evolving again. My analysis of racism in America is as it pertains to my personal experience as a brown asian woman -- and I do not purport to speak on behalf of others. I fully acknowledge that racism is different across all groups, and often experienced differently by men and women of the same groups.
As an immigrant child growing up in the U.S. in the 80s, my experience was based on exclusion and ignorance. People had no idea where my native country was -- "Afghanistan, is that in Africa?" As a young girl during ages when one's self-image is so fragile, I had no role models in the media who were women of color like me, so I felt a sense of shame and self-criticism for not being anything like the white models and actors I would see on TV or in magazines. I would get made fun of by my peers for my dark skin, prominent nose, dark curly hair. Bullies would call me a foreigner, but they weren't bullying me because I was a foreigner -- they were bullying me because they were assholes and I was just another target. I would be made fun of by my peers for speaking a different language at home, eating different food than they do, having a different culture and traditions to follow. I lived in the DC area, however, so being a minority was not uncommon. With each year, diversity increased and with it grew an understanding of other cultures. People asked questions about my ethnicity, usually by making assumptions. "Are you from India? You look indian." "You must be muslim." "You're not asian, you look middle eastern." Or they'd ask stupid presumptuous questions upon initial interaction. "Do you speak english?" "How come you don't speak with an accent?"
None of this was comfortable but it certainly wasn't threatening. It was racial prejudice based in ignorance and I like to think I helped shape some people's knowledge and experience even just a little bit.
9/11 left us grieving and fearing like no other event in recent modern history. On that dreadful day, I was huddled with coworkers in tears and solidarity as we watched the attacks happening. That night, I was huddled with friends glued to the news watching how our nation prepared to respond -- and the first step included American forces in Afghanistan beginning what has been the longest American war in history.
The aftermath of 9/11 included a new type of racism I had never experienced before -- one that was based in fear. This racism was one that left me uncertain how to change perceptions.
My mother received death threats because she owned an Afghan restaurant. She had protection thanks to unconstitutional monitoring from the FBI. I had people shout "taliban!" or "terrorist!" at me. I was on an elevator with my laptop and notepad going up to a client meeting when the doors opened a few floors before my destination and a man and woman were waiting to come onto the elevator -- the man saw me and stopped, the woman questioned him, and he responded while looking right at me with "I don't know if she's got a bomb or something, I'm not getting on the elevator." I could give more examples but you get the idea.
Today's racism is based purely on hate and an actual belief in white superiority. Trump's success in the 2016 election was secured in part due to his appeal to the racist bigots who want to "Make America White Again". In Trump's America, my 10 year old cousin has already been called a terrorist and told to "go home". Women in hijab have been attacked and threatened. A teacher was told to hang herself with her headscarf. A teacher stood by doing nothing while students chanted "build a wall" to their hispanic/latino peers. Another teacher himself told students their parents would be deported. A black woman was told by a white man that soon it would be legal for him to own her again. Hindi students were shoved off a bus. Graffiti has marked cities across the nation with swastikas and racist threats. It doesn't end. There are literally tens of thousands of similar stories from just the past few days.
So yeah, Trump hasn't ended the world yet. However, he has fueled hatred and validated openly racist behavior without remorse. He has made this nation more unsafe. It feels like the end of the world as we know it, and I'm afraid of what's still to come. With the definitive shift from ignorance to fear to hate, I feel lost and hopeless about how to overcome racism. As a brown American, I can provide context, I can try to quell fear, but I have no idea how to stop hate.
#brownamerican #racism #prejudice #since911