In a September opinion piece for the Justice, I argued that Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers ought not to have protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. My argument, in a nutshell, was that refusing to honor a symbol of America was not a good way to protest racism because, while factions of the country might be racist, the very core beliefs and values of the country were ones that were in line with racial equality. “If I were born in a country I believed to be, at its very core, fundamentally unjust,” I wrote in the piece, “it would be fine and even preferable not to stand for the anthem. Yet, to me, the United States is not convincingly that country.” Nov. 8 changed my mind, not only about Kaepernick’s protest but also about the heart of this country. 

Let there be no ambiguity in my opinion on President-elect Donald Trump; he is a bigot. From the very first day of his campaign, when he called Mexican immigrants rapists, to Election Day, he has consistently demeaned people of color, both in words and actions. Mitt Romney, John McCain and the other establishment Republicans who have dominated the party for the last decade may support policies which are bad for people of color ― and other minorities ― but I doubt that this is a result of deep-seated personal prejudice. 

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has seemed to pursue racist ends long before he ran for president. According to an investigation by the New York Times, published on Aug. 27, Trump was sued twice by the Justice Department in the 1970s for discriminating against African-Americans by denying them housing in his apartment blocks. In the 1980s, Trump spent $85,000 on full-page advertisements in major New York newspapers, demanding the return of the death penalty in response to the rape of a jogger in Central Park, according to an Oct. 8 Washington Post article. By feeding the outrage machine, Trump was largely responsible for the public pressure which contributed to the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of color in this case, one of the first times he used his public persona to scapegoat minorities. Despite their exoneration upon further DNA evidence, Trump wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News in June 2014, in which he claimed to still believe that they were guilty. According to a July 23 New York Times opinion piece, John O’Donnell, the former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, released a book in 1991 which quoted Trump as saying, “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day” and that “laziness is a trait in blacks.” In a May 1997 interview with Playboy Magazine, Trump admitted that the quote was authentic. If that is not a sign of deep-seated personal prejudice, then I cannot imagine what could possibly qualify. 

This year’s election did not change the composition of the country; it only unveiled a truth that was obscured from my sight by my own privilege. The country is remarkably racist. People of color like Kaepernick know this because it is a reality that they live. The underlying assumption of my earlier article was that, while implicit and institutional racism existed, these were notions that were not reflected by America’s core values. The election proves otherwise, however. It is unclear whether half of American voters supported Trump because they, too, share his racist beliefs, but it is clear that, at the very least, half of them voted for him in spite of his racism. 

When the “disgruntled” or “economically disempowered” white Trump voters claim that they are not racist, it begs the question — what is racist by their standards? Trump failed to adequately disavow David Duke’s endorsement, failed to disavow his own comments about Mexicans, failed to apologize for racist business practices and for racist hatred toward the Central Park Five. By electing Trump, America refused to reject racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia — to ever draw a line in the sand. The Republicans linked themselves with white nationalists during the campaign by refusing to ever oppose them despite being given a million chances to do so. Now these same people complain that “not all [Trump supporters] are ‘bigots and racists’, and... [that Democrats need to understand] their fears and motives in a non-condescending manner, without sticking labels on them,” to quote a Trump supporter on Facebook. Trump supporters cannot have their cake and eat it, too. If you support and legitimize racism for political or personal gain, you are still racist. Having ulterior motives does not make you any morally better. Hillary Clinton was not everyone’s first choice, but the comparison in the election could not have been more stark. Perhaps what struck me most was the audacity of Trump and his supporters to implicitly claim that they know what is best for minorities, better than the minorities themselves. Just shy of 90 percent of Black Americans voted for Clinton, yet Trump sailed to power on the backs of white Americans. 

My friends who are people of color feel unsafe and worry about their future in Trump’s America. Kaepernick’s protest was one aimed toward a state which has turned its back on minorities. This was a reality that has only become clear to me in the wake of the election. People of color, among the other groups threatened by a Trump presidency, should feel no obligation to stand for the anthem, to repeat the pledge of allegiance or to feel any semblance of patriotism for a country which has repeatedly denied that their lives matter. Two months ago, I thought that America cherished values of equality and that this has been the driver behind the often slow, but nevertheless steady, social progress of this nation’s history. 

This might be true at Brandeis — it might even be true in Massachusetts — but the election has decisively proven that it is untrue for America as a whole. I recognize now that progress has happened, not thanks to but in spite of the reluctance of most Americans. For those of us who have had a rude awakening to the real America, the one that was always outside our bubbles of privilege, there is no option but to fight and organize. We cannot allow the policies of Trump to go unchallenged. There can be no ban on Muslims or deportations of undocumented immigrants or end to birthright citizenship. Unless we want to live in a world where racism is increasingly normalized again, we cannot stop calling Trump and his policies bigoted and we cannot let people forget the things he has said in his campaign.