The Whitest America
Most of us are reeling from the first few days of the second Trump presidency, begging for a few minutes off from the constant memos, and executive orders and publicity stunts, and devastating news coming from every outlet and social media platform. But in reality, for most of us, these orders and blaring calls for stuffing America back into a white, straight, "normal" box don't really affect us. Not if we're white, straight, and "normal," that is.
I'll focus on the white today.
None of this comes as a surprise to those of us who aren't pretending we're not racist, who aren't acting like this moment in history hasn't happened before on a massive global scale, and who haven't chosen to live in a metaphoric fallout shelter for the last eight years. The writing was on the wall long before 2016, and by "wall" I mean the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post, and New York Newsday. That's where Donald Trump posted a full-page ad calling for the death penalty of five teenage boys, then coined the "Central Park 5" (now the "Exonerated 5"), wrongfully accused of gang-raping a female jogger in 1989.
Donald Trump has long used his money and pull in legacy media to get his point across and clearly state his views on people of color or those living below the poverty line.
"In February 2000, when Trump was again flirting with a run for the White House, he took out anonymous ads in local upstate New York newspapers, in an effort to shut down a rival casino backed by a group of Native Americans. Beneath a picture of needles and drug paraphernalia, the ad stated: 'Are these the new neighbors we want?' It added: 'The St. Regis Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented.'” - The Guardian
In 1973 the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his father, Fred Trump, for discriminating against African Americans and Puerto Ricans, "systematically excluding them" from renting in their high-rise New York apartments. The Trumps responded with a $100 million defamation lawsuit, and Donald would go on to write a book in 1987 about the ordeal, denying racial discrimination, but claiming his managers "tried to weed out certain kinds of tenants."
"What we didn’t do was rent to welfare cases, white or black." - Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal
In the first administration Donald Trump saw support from the Ku Klux Klan, including the former grand wizard David Duke's full endorsement, as well as the Proud Boys, and even Germany's neo-Nazi far-right movement. Trump’s disavowment of these "very fine people” was stilted and slow, and we knew immediately that where there's history - ahem, smoke - there's fire.
So here we are a week into administration #2, and he’s no longer stilted or even concerned about his stance on marginalized communities. Any lack of confidence Donald Trump held in his views, his values, his discrimination, his loveless lack of moral or ethical upbringing, has all been replaced with a hubristic and foolhardy intent of wiping America clean of anything outside the box, all with the support of a team of white, straight, Christian Nationalist, surgically-altered, unqualified sycophants who keep accidentally flashing Nazi gang signs.
It's time to call a spade a spade and parse through a mere 9 days of whitewashing every state in the Union systemically, thoroughly, and with the intent of rolling back civil rights to not only pre-1960s America, but with the potential to undo laws made in the time of the Civil War.
In the past week we've seen a rash of executive orders and memos meant to erase people of color and those living below the poverty line. Supported by an exceedingly white and mostly-male cohort in both the House and the Senate, Trump has scribbled his name on every possible rule to rid this great nation of marginalized groups. This includes, but is not limited to (we still have 1469 days to go):
Attempting to remove birthright citizenship--protected by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and subsequently blocked by a Federal District Court Judge
Restoring names that "honor American greatness"--i.e. reverting names like "Mount Denali" (for the Koyukon Alaskan Athabaskan people) back to "Mount McKinley" for the American President who won the Spanish-American War, and the "Gulf of Mexico" to the "Gulf of America"
Suspending safe and legal refugee admissions to the U.S.
Protecting against "invasion" (an intentional term used to instill fear)--"aliens cross(ing) our borders or...permitted to fly directly into the United States on commercial flights and allowed to settle in American communities"
Invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime authority which allows the President to detain or deport Natives or citizens of an "enemy nation,” a label he or she chooses at will
Along with these and many, many other executive orders, Trump is rolling back 78 other EOs signed during the Biden Administration meant to provide equity and opportunity for communities of color and those living below the poverty line. Things like racial equality; including non-citizens in the census in order to provide healthcare, education, and congressional representation; providing treatment and access to care in response to COVID-19 and other potential pandemics, which have a disproportionate impact on communities of color and under-served populations; protecting public health; supporting early childhood education; protecting the federal workforce; strengthening Medicaid; providing safer and more legal options for asylum-seekers at the border; building a taskforce for the reunification of immigrant families; creating neighborhood and faith-based partnerships to serve the under-served; providing a national cushion for climate-related financial risk, which also disproportionately impacts communities of color; protecting DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—to allow the workforce to be an equal representation of the U.S. population; advancing education, equity, excellence, and economic opportunities for Hispanic, Native American, and Black American populations; promoting pay equity; lowering prescription drug costs; and providing reproductive care to under-served populations with higher infant and maternal mortality rates.
These regulations, both new executive orders and rescinded orders from the previous administration, are meant to target the non-white population in the United States, creating an unlivable and unwelcome landscape in the hopes that they might just disappear, or at least be more representative of the "idyllic" 1950s, remembered so fondly by white America. Don't be fooled by the calls for "saving money" for your benefit--a federal freeze targets families below the poverty line, not the billionaires who can afford to pay off every debt in every home in America.
It's for the ones who rely on Meals on Wheels, rental assistance, homeless shelters, Head Start, Medicaid, free and reduced school lunches, a hand up while they work 40+ hours a week just like you. Not poor because they're lazy; poor because the federal minimum wage is still $7.25/hour, where it's been for the last 16 years. Meanwhile inflation during the same period of time has increased 36%. Yet we blame them for being poor. For being needy. For being Black, Hispanic, immigrants, uneducated, "mooching from the government."
So while the Trump Administration systematically removes every opportunity for people of color to grow, to educate, to earn, to live, while he erases the Spanish language and the Constitution from government websites, while the opportunity for reproductive healthcare and resources disappears, making it harder for people to protect themselves, while he takes away Constitutional rights to live in the United States even if you're a legal citizen, while he removes names and places honoring people of color, while he calls for death penalties for children and refers to honest working migrants without criminal records as "drug dealers, criminals, [and] rapists," ask yourself: what is his ultimate goal?
White America.
Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City, and is represented by Vicki Marsdon at High Spot Literary.
I love your article. But not all white people are racists. Many fight hard for injustice, civil rights, equity etc. Donald Trump is not white, he is a brown POS. We must all stand together. I believe we have come along way in the last 50 years. And we will not go back.