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(CNN)I noticed the waiter lingering around my table a little more than usual. For the first time at this buffet-style restaurant, the waiter seemed agitated. Normally, he would be singing to mesmerized patrons in between busing tables and asking if customers needed any assistance in a place that is essentially self-serve.
“That man called me boy,” he finally told me, unprompted, while pointing his eyes toward an older white gentleman in blue overalls.
They are asked to ignore what was revealed during this election cycle, to peacefully accept the results and give the new guy a chance. They are told to do this for a man who, in many respects, spent his campaign demeaning people of color in the way that black waiter felt demeaned after being called boy. That came on the heels of Trump having spent years doing the same to the nation’s first black president through a birther movement that had nearly three-quarters of Republicans doubting that Barack Obama was born in this country.
People of color will find a way to get through, will find a way to reconcile the casualness with which many of their white friends and colleagues ignored an open bigotry and maintain the love and respect they’ve had for those people. They always do. They have decades of practice in a country that is sometimes threatened by their skin color, other times by their burgeoning success.
But don’t expect them to just grin and bear it this time. That anger can’t simply be wiped away by a new, softer tone from the President-elect. And it will not dissipate because Obama is reminding his supporters, like he did in his first post-election news conference Monday, that in a democracy things don’t always go our way and that we must make the transition of power as smooth as possible, no matter who we voted for or against.
The struggling white Americans who chose Trump have neither faced struggle as deep nor as long as people of color, yet their personal struggles are pointed to as an excuse for voting for a man either because of or despite his bigotry.
When will people of color get a similar pass for where their anger might lead them?
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The post Why we can’t forget the racism of this campaign appeared first on MavWrek Marketing by Jason
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