A national poll from Suffolk University revealed that seven percent of Donald Trump’s supporters believe he is a racist – and that’s just fine with them. On the high end, 76 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of black voters said they felt Trump was a racist. Overall 44 percent said they thought the Republican candidate was prejudiced towards others. While it is hardly surprising that most find Donald Trump to be bigoted, it is hard to overlook how seven percent of his supporters believe it is OK to be intolerant towards others.
Racism is a vile human characteristic. It degrades and blurs people into objects of disdain. In turn, individuals lose their originality as they are lumped into the dehumanizing groups of generalizations. We can be blinded by our prejudice, unable to discern how what we say can hold a group of people in a shadowy judgement.
Politicians like Trump use fear to further their careers by painting images of how life outside the bubble of whiteness is full of dark shadows, each plotting to impose their ways upon the peaceful members of America. Fear is moved by racist imagery, causing the frightened to cower as they allow words of contempt to unite them with promises of safety. Donald Trump relishes and inflames the crowd’s fear with his racist rants of a better place.
Despite the baseness of racism, most people sadly don’t realize that what they are supporting is racist. Instead most would give that surprised look, “what do you mean I’m a racist?” Surely most people wouldn’t openly identify themselves with hatred. Yet here we are looking at how seven percent of Trump’s supporters knowingly listen to the ramblings of a bigoted man and say “that sounds like me.”
But how do you reason with people who identify with hate? Is there a way to talk with someone who regards bigotry as a characteristic to respect and elect into the highest office in the land? Not seeing the hatred before your eyes is one thing, but to see it and support it is something else entirely.
It’s easy to laugh and point at their emblems of intolerance. Unfortunately mockery doesn’t solve the fact that seven percent of a voting contingent is OK with hate. So do we marginalize them, leaving them to wave their discriminatory flags in their dark bubbles of revulsion? Hoping that perhaps one day a metaphysical love will come down and shine a light into their hearts of stone.
There is no easy answer. Unfortunately for the racist seven percent, we will go about our lives, pretending they don’t exist. But ignoring hate doesn’t mean it dissolves back into the shadows. Instead, ignoring it allows it to bubble until it seeps into the discourse of the American conscience and leads us to put forth a candidate that embodies all that we hold vile. Confronting hate is difficult but that doesn’t mean we should pretend it doesn’t exist.
Featured image from YouTube video.
