Hayley Cagle, This Race is About Race

Summary: With Trump as the Republican candidate in this year's election, tensions are rising. A large amount of Trump supporters are white conservative men. With our country's melting pot of cultures and races, their impact is being to subside. Some of his supporters believe that Obama's term brought fear of minority leaders to Trump supporters, and they believe that Trump is the first step in the right direction. The growing Latino population brings an odd circumstance. Instead of lessening racial tension with the increase of a race, it's bringing even more tension. It's like we're taking one step forward and two steps back. Trump has been anything but subtle about his feelings towards immigrants. He degrades them time and time again, spreading the stereotypes that are the root of discrimination and inequality in our society. Many of Trump's supporters have dismissed these abominations by stating that they are "politically correct". The state of our nation currently brings anxiety to white Americans about the rapid diversification happening in America and frustration among African-American and Latino citizens for the lack of change that occurred during Obama's term.

Analysis: In past elections, racism hasn't been the hot topic, but now that one of the prime candidate is the poster child for white supremacy and racism, it's all we can afford to talk about. If Trump would get elected, all of this country's hard work, dating back to the Fourteenth Amendment, will be flushed down the drain. In a way, many advances made have brought backlash. The fact that you have nationally recognized athletes sitting down during the National Anthem tells you that something is very wrong. The fact that you have an entire movement dedicated the lives lost due to people who are supposed to protect our citizens and our country tells you that we need to wake up. A man like Trump being the leader of a country built by immigrants would just be putting gasoline on a fire.

Synthesis: This is practically identical to the Election of 1964, when Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, a man supported by members of the KKK and other white nationalists, was running for president. In this time, African-Americans also feared police and White Americans felt uneasy about the potential thriving of the African-American community.





http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-02/racial-tension-in-the-2016-presidential-election