I've seen a lot of articles lately that are saying the same thing: People need to get in line and support and accept Donald Trump as the new President of the United States.
And I've got a bit of a problem with that.
My question is simple: How do you expect me, a Jewish woman, to support a man who promotes a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer to the National Security Council? How do you expect Muslims to support a man who wants to ban them from this country? How do you expect LGBTQA+ individuals to support a man who's second-in-command wants to throw them in conversion camps? How do you expect any minority group to support Donald Trump when he is actively working against their best interests in bigoted and prejudiced ways?
Because the glaring subtext behind this question—Why can't you just support Trump?—is just as simple: Privilege.
White privilege. Straight privilege. Christian privilege.
When you ask a minority—or anyone, really—why they don't support Trump, you're flaunting your privilege and ignoring peoples' real and genuine emotions. And no, don't throw that crap about us being "liberal snowflakes" at me. Having emotions and fears doesn't make me us snowflakes, it makes us goddamn empathetic human beings.
It may seem innocuous enough, asking someone to support and accept the newest president. But with this President and this world, it's not. By asking this of someone, you're saying that their fears and emotions don't matter. You're saying that even though Trump is a bigot, a misogynist, a racist, a man who surrounds himself with even more bigoted and misogynistic and racist people, you still support him, and others should too.
To support Donald Trump, for me, would be to support someone who disgusts me. Someone who stands for everything that I—and America—is against.
Since when did the home of the free and the land of the brave become okay with discriminating against people based on the color of their skin or the God that they worship? Since when did it become encouraged to hate and fear complete strangers whose only crime is being different than you?
That may be Trump's America, but that is not my America.
These are not small points that I and Trump can disagree upon and move forward. Trump believes in racist, bigoted policies—he has already shown that much. With his policies, Trump is saying that minority groups—whether that be Muslims or Jews or LGBTQAI+ individuals or any other minority—do not matter and do not have a place in his America.
How in the world do you expect me to support a man who does those things? How do you expect me to fall in line amongst the Nazis and white supremacists and so-called "alt-right" members on his side?
So the next time Trump supporters wonder why—why there are protestors in the street, why people scream "Not My President!" from the top of their lungs, why I and so many others refuse to support Donald J. Trump—check your privilege, put yourself in someone else's shoes for once, and you'll have your answer.
