It Started with Donald Trump (Alison’s Truth)
It started with Donald Trump. No, it started with Jerrel.
During the fall semester of 2016, Jerrel enrolled in my developmental literacy class. A Black man, about my age, Jerrel was a veteran who had returned to college when his daughter began her college career. He and I often engaged in sidebar conversations in the hallway after class. As we discussed both local and national races in the 2016 election cycle, I thought that we shared a common disgust for the behavior and language of candidate Trump. Like me, he was appalled by the sexist and racist language exhibited by Donald Trump. In my lifetime, U.S. voters had turned away from Mitt Romney over questionable travel arrangements for his dog. Never in a million years could I imagine the same country electing Donald Trump – a man who referred to Latinx immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, who blatantly, proudly described his sexual harassment of women, and who had been the subject of public complaints over unethical business practices. Jerrel and I shared eyerolls and sardonic laughter over the antics and rhetoric of candidate Trump.
On November 8, 2016, I sat through the night, phone in hand, watching election returns and texting my officemate in disbelief. People actually voted for that man. Whether because of or despite his unethical practices and despicable rhetoric, the United States of America had elected Donald Trump as president.
This was not a world I understood. Although my adult perspective had become quite liberal, I had grown up in a conservative household. I had heard family members bemoan the “socialist” policies of liberals from Kennedy to Obama. And yet, as I had watched Democrats and Republicans win and lose elections over the years, I had been able to convince myself that, right or left, our presidents were essentially good people with good intentions for our country.
On November 8, 2016, that view was shattered. I could not ignore what Donald Trump, himself, had said and done. I couldn’t set his vile comments aside as political rhetoric. They were the words of a bad man, and the election of this blatantly bad man meant that, at very least, I had to accept that, for a huge percentage of the American population, hatred and evil were the means that they were willing to accept in pursuit of their political ends.
Like so many of my White colleagues, I struggled to engage professionally the next day. One of my overriding concerns was for my Black and Latinx students. If I was so devastated by the election results, how would they be able to cope? At the end of the developmental literacy class, Jerrell met me in the hall.
“Are you okay?” he said.
I fought back my tears and said, sincerely, “I am not, but how are you?”
Trump’s election devastated me. Jerrel’s response awakened me.
“I’m fine.” Jerrel said with a wry smile. “You’re hurting because you thought the world was different. What you’re learning, I have always known.”
Jerrel, of course, passed developmental literacy and moved on with his life. Over the next two years, we still occasionally chatted in the halls. He eventually completed his coursework. I am still learning.
Recently, I served on a committee charged with setting institutional goals. The committee reflected the diverse ideals of our community with Black, White, Latinx, old, young, straight, gay, and trans members. We collaborated for months on goals, values, and action statements. We spent significant time wordsmithing to make sure that the document reflected the consensus of the committee. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience; I was truly proud of the work we had done.
Several weeks later, we received an email requesting edits to our document. Most were simple changes that garnered few objections. But one request sent me tumbling back to 2016 – the request that we change the phrase “structural racism” to “racial inequities” specifically because the term “structural racism” had been the crux of debate across the country and on our campus. The term “structural racism” would divide rather than unite our community.
The committee met again. I was so angry, I almost did not attend the meeting. I was outraged because I knew that “structural racism” in all its implications reflected the concerns our committee intended to address through the goals we had written. I knew that “racial inequities” did not. I knew that my anger was a cousin to the devastation I felt at Donald Trump’s election. I knew that avoiding “contested language” might keep the peace and allow us to “get things done,” but it would also maintain silences that perpetuate inequities.
One of my overriding concerns was for my Black and Latinx colleagues. If I was so devasted by the request for less “inflammatory” language, how would they be feeling? And then I remembered Jerrel. “What you’re learning, I have always known.”
Looking through Jerrel’s wiser eyes, I decided that my anger and frustration were not the issue. The resistance to progressive wording, the insistence that we accept small changes over time were new for me, but they were blood memories for my BIPOC colleagues. I decided that my colleagues needed my presence and my witness more than my anger. So I attended the meeting to listen to them and to support the will of the group, all the while schooling myself to set aside my White fragility, to listen without imposing my White perspective. While my own eyes welled with tears of anger and frustration, I heard shared anger. I heard shared disappointment. I heard those who have always known structural racism arguing that our current goals represented significant institutional growth, regardless of the terminology used. I saw sad but determined colleagues vowing to fight for the work we needed to do, not for the label put on that work. Reluctantly, we “agreed” to the change in wording.
But to this day, I still struggle with fundamental questions about my role in such situations. Was I right to tamp down my anger, or should I have let it show? Did my BIPOC colleagues need me to step back, to honor their expertise, or did they need me to exercise my White privilege for the benefit of the community? Could giving voice to my anger and frustration have made a difference or would it have been a performative show of my “woke-ness?” How do we rewrite the scripts that teach us to go along, to compromise, to accept baby steps when we need systemic change?
