If your Twitter handle begins with “Deplorable” this post probably isn’t for you. If you believe that Confederate iconography represents some mythical, noble, lost-cause heritage, rather than a treasonous, white-supremacist misadventure, you should press Ctrl+W. If you are willing to explain away the rise in racial and religious attacks, especially those targeting students, in the post-election period, please, for both of us, move along.
My parents came from Jim Crow Mississippi and Arkansas. I know the tales of their youth. I am reminded of these stories as I read the news today. The president-elect of the United States has stated his desire to deport the relatives of many of my students. In the post-election period, his supporters have suggested, because of their religion, registering many of my students in a national database. Before the election, the president-elect said that half of my students deserve to have their bodies violated, if it suits a powerful man’s whim. During a debate, the president-elect said to a quarter of my students, that the path to racial reconciliation in America was through “stop & frisk” and more aggressive law enforcement in black communities. This is opposite of progress.
This isn’t a partisan take. I have voted Republican before. I voted for two Republicans this fall. The Trump administration, his proposed policies, his juvenile temperament, all represent an existential threat to the America that I love—and that I served for six years.
I spent the last two weeks trying to get my head around election night. It fits the historical pattern, but it’s still disconcerting. Every major period of racial progress in America has begat a reactionary retrenchment: Reconstruction saw the rise of the Klan in the South; Johnson’s War on Poverty, Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act preceded Nixon’s landslide victory via the Southern Strategy and dog whistles; now, the first black President, first black First Lady and first two black Attorneys General will be replaced by Donald, Melania, and Jeff Sessions respectively.
The nomination of Jeff Sessions is especially emblematic of the regression that the Trump Administration represents. In 1986, Sessions was nominated for the federal bench by President Reagan, but he was deemed too racist then to be confirmed by the Senate. In the interim, the voters of Alabama have elected him to the US Senate (several times) and he is now a confirmation vote away from becoming the chief law enforcement officer of the nation. I thought we were better than this.
I used my role as 2016 Washington State Teacher of the Year to talk about uncomfortable truths and realities for students of color and students in poverty all over my state. The election hits even closer to home. Many of my students are deeply concerned: Will he deport my mother? My brother has ongoing health issues; will we lose our health care? Will he deny me the right to marry another woman? Will he make me register, since I am a Muslim? These are a few of the questions I have fielded over the last two weeks. Will he? Will he? Will he?
In my government class, we often talk about how the most consequential presidencies are the result of one party rule. Republican rule, Lincoln through Grant, led to three Constitutional Amendments (13-15). Democratic rule gave us The New Deal, Glass-Steagall, AFDC (welfare), and Social Security. Again, Democratic rule, under Johnson brought us the Civil Rights Era. We have handed to Donald J. Trump—the only person ever elected to the presidency without prior governing or military experience—unified government, a Supreme Court nomination, and nearly enough state legislatures under control of his party to amend the US Constitution and cement his policies into our most revered document for generations. We have slept walked into a full blown renegotiation of the social contract—a New New Deal or the Old Deal—if you will.
I can’t look my students in the eye, lie to them and say it’s all going to be okay. I don’t know that it will. We live in dangerous times, particularly for communities of color and those on the economic margins of our nation. In his book “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning” Chris Hedges described the descent into ethnic cleansing and genocide in post-Soviet Yugoslavia. Data from exit polling shows us we have entered an unprecedented era of tribal voting. Trump won the white vote by larger margins than Ronald Reagan—Ronald-effing-Reagan. The president-elect has a white-nationalist leader working as his senior adviser. Brietbart and Fox News could serve as Eastern Bloc style quasi-state news agencies. Neo-Nazis and leaders of the Klan have heralded his election. The attacks and violence we have seen across the nation echo the early pages of Hedges’ book. I’m not suggesting we are headed down that path to Milosevic, but it is now a non-zero probability.
I have no time for your pleas to “wait and see.” You can keep your false equivalence arguments. I have no interest in any of it. We have entered an age of uncertainty. The sole check on Trump’s authority are the Federal Courts and Congressional Republicans. That thought should send a shiver down your spine.
Throughout US history, teachers (especially black teachers) led struggles for justice: guiding freedman in the transition from the agrarian to the industrial after Emancipation, leading and modeling democratic citizenship in protests during the civil rights movement. My teaching license literally says “Humanities Teacher.” I will not sit idly by while the very humanity of my students is questioned and renegotiated. This is the work ahead.
We must lead.