Hate On The Rise After Trump's Election

Racist graffiti inspired by the Presidential election. Hate crimes have spiked since Donald Trump’s victory.
Article/Op-Ed in New Yorker
Shutterstock.com
Nov. 17, 2016

Alexis Okeowo wrote for the New Yorker about the increase in racist and xenophobic harassment documented since Trump’s election:

Since Donald Trump won the Presidential election, there has been a dramatic uptick in incidents of racist and xenophobic harassment across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there were four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of intimidation between the election, on November 8th, and November 14th, targeting blacks and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women. One woman in Colorado told the S.P.L.C. that her twelve-year-old daughter was approached by a boy who said, “Now that Trump is President, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.” At a school in Washington State, students chanted “build a wall” in a cafeteria. In Texas, someone saw graffiti at work: “no more illegals 1-20-17,” a reference to Inauguration Day.
Such harassment occurred throughout Trump’s campaign, but now appears to have taken on a new boldness, empowered by the election of a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed candidate who has denigrated women and racial and religious minorities. “This represents a big increase in what we’ve seen since the campaign, and these incidents are far and wide: we’re seeing them in schools, we’re seeing them in places of business, we’re seeing them in museums and gas stations,” Richard Cohen, the president of the S.P.L.C., said. “White supremacists are celebrating, and it’s their time, the way they see it.” Cohen said that an online survey of teachers found that more than half had seen an increase in hostile speech during the campaign. Students of color have wondered aloud if their parents will be deported.