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How Trump’s win changed my Deep South college experience
Fusion ^ | December 26, 2016 | Imani Brooks

Posted on 12/26/2016 10:15:39 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

I watched the election results in Emory University’s Black Student Union with Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book and gospel playing in the background. There was a table full of cupcakes, salsa and chips, and pizza; I sat with my French workbook in my lap. Every time a red state was taken a prayer was said, and the mood became more somber. I jumped out of my chair when Virginia, my home state, pulled through as blue for the third year in a row.

I have never been naïve about elections. I grew up in a battleground state. My parents taught me that, as an African American woman, my vote is my voice. And on the day of the election my French and English professors repeated the message we’d all been told: that Hillary could win. They chose to believe the liberal atmosphere of our Atlanta, Georgia school could be replicated across America.

Instead, on election night—my first election I could vote in—I slid further and further down in my chair in agony. At midnight, the building closed and we were asked to leave. A sick feeling settled over me as I migrated to the viewing party in my dorm. I should’ve known then what would happen next. For the most part, Emory is a liberal school. We do have our Young Republicans, and not everyone calls themselves a feminist, and some might believe we live in a post-racial society. But those groups were once in the quiet minority, and election night redefined my campus just as it did the country.

The lines between my school’s liberalism and Georgia’s widespread conservatism became much blurrier November 9.

As it became obvious that Trump would take the White House, his supporters made themselves known, going to their rooms and coming back with signs and “Make America Great Again” hats. Sadness settled over me as I retreated to my own room. I had made the choice to go to college in the Deep South. But the lines between my school’s liberalism and Georgia’s widespread conservatism became much blurrier November 9. And it changed the way I—as a black woman, a liberal, a visitor to the South—interact with the world around me.

I woke up on November 9 to multiple texts from my friends, telling me to be safe. They had came to the same realization I had: I am a black college student in a part of the country where a a lot of people had just made it very clear that they do not respect my skin color. Safety was on their minds. That day the city skyline was covered by fog and the sky was gray. Most students wore black in mourning, and to show solidarity with minority students (myself included) who felt that Trump’s election represented the suppression of our freedoms. But I wore one of my empowering outfits: a tan, long sweater over a blue jean dress with new ankle boots. I was determined to be strong.

Suddenly I was hit with the realization that I was living in a different world.

On Wednesday a silent protest march cut through the circle of usual activity and snaked across campus. I watched the march in silent appreciation. The sea of black went right by a table of Young Republicans celebrating Trump’s victory. Maybe they did not pay any attention to the protesters because America was “great again” for them and that was all that mattered. Suddenly I was hit with the realization that I was living in a different world.

In the weeks since Doomsday my life has become framed in an entirely different way. I’m both a majority and a minority now. My liberal views, shared by my college, make me a part of the majority there. But I am part of a minority because I am a black student at a predominantly white school. And since the election, I’m more aware that I’m part of another minority: a member of a liberal campus in a southern state in Trump’s America. I do not like to be put into boxes, but this is my reality now.

To be a black student on a liberal campus in a red state means I live a life of cognitive dissonance.

My first election made me question whether I actually have a voice in this country. To be in a red state as a minority student means my dignity felt stripped away. The fact that American voters supported Trump’s hate speech made feel threatened; some of his rhetoric was directed against my black skin. My identity feels more expendable to America now, as if my ancestors had not helped build this country. So I’ve been finding ways to make my identity an integral part of my academic journey, whether that’s by writing an English essay on race or picking up an African American Studies course for the spring semester.

To be a black student on a liberal campus in a red state means I am living a life of cognitive dissonance. My campus, where I feel loved and wanted, is situated in a state where many people have been taught to hate those who look like me. And even some kinds of conservatism, previously rare in my Emory bubble, have seeped onto campus. While I acknowledge the conservative and racist factions in my country, I do not accept them. I am so grateful for the opportunity to study at my school but I cannot turn a blind eye to to world at large. I must defend my beliefs and my rights even more now because the election results ultimately made me more of a minority.

As an African American woman, I have always experienced a certain type of alienation, but after the election, that feeling has expanded. To function on a daily basis, I feel my mentality slipping into one that would be appropriate for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It is a confusing difference to navigate and one that is more and more apparent every day since November 9. Ultimately, to be a black woman at Emory in the middle of a red state means I am becoming a new type of Freedom Fighter.


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: blacks; coeds; college; racism; trump
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Comments?
1 posted on 12/26/2016 10:15:39 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

As Obama told republicans in 2009, “We Won, You lost!”


2 posted on 12/26/2016 10:18:40 AM PST by AU72
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Liberal Tears for Christmas. I am not tired of winning yet, President-Elect Trump, in fact, you have whetted my appetite.


3 posted on 12/26/2016 10:19:19 AM PST by XEHRpa
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They rolled Toomer’s Corner at Auburn when Trump won. Not all schools are full of snowflakes, thank God.


4 posted on 12/26/2016 10:19:35 AM PST by boknows
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Sounds like another racist, delusional, Stalinist special snowflake needs to get a clue and grow the hell up.


5 posted on 12/26/2016 10:21:32 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Je Suis Pepe)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Deliberate self isolation from reality = Snowflake.


6 posted on 12/26/2016 10:22:24 AM PST by pfflier
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
To the author of this screed: Yawn.
7 posted on 12/26/2016 10:22:26 AM PST by Col Freeper (Liberals: Devoted members of the "Church of the Eternally Offended".)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

African American women: the most biased, one-sided voting group in the United States. By far.


8 posted on 12/26/2016 10:22:29 AM PST by CatOwner
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

None from me that can be printed.


9 posted on 12/26/2016 10:22:53 AM PST by sport
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Reach out to minorities that voted for Trump, you might learn something.


10 posted on 12/26/2016 10:24:34 AM PST by Huskrrrr
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I don't give a damn that she's a woman. I don't give a damn that she's "African-American". And I certainly do not give a damn that she calls herself a "liberal".

The feelings-based people have run this country into the ground, from the Community Organizer on down. Perhaps she and her elitist snowflakes don't care about that, but a LOT of the REAL Americans in those provinces she and her fellow "progressives" have sneered at in derision... they DID care. Enough to exercise their right to depose Hilllary, Obama, and everything that they stand for.

Liberals have had their time. They have been weighed and found wanting.

I do not want to shove liberals to the back of the bus. I want to leave them sobbing on the curb as the bus drives by ignoring them.

11 posted on 12/26/2016 10:24:55 AM PST by Ciaphas Cain (The choice to be stupid is not a conviction I am obligated to respect.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I am a black college student in a part of the country where a lot of people had just made it very clear that they do not respect my skin color.

So because I voted for Trump, I do not respect her skin color?

OK, I'll say it: I do not respect her skin color, but not in the way she thinks. I do not respect it because I serve a God who is no respecter of persons. I do not respect it because MLK told me that his dream was that his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I do not respect it because Sydney Poitier acted a role where he chided his father for thinking of himself as "a colored man," when he should have been thinking of himself as a man.

I did not vote for Trump because he is white. I would have voted for Allen West, and not because he is black. I am not a respecter of skin color. I am a respecter of competence and an understanding of the place of the United States in the world, and Hillary Clinton had neither, while Donald Trump had both, and that is why I voted for him.

When, madame, you learn to think of yourself, the country, the world, and God more than your skin color, then we will be able to talk rationally, and not before.

12 posted on 12/26/2016 10:25:05 AM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"As an African American woman...situated in a state where many people have been taught to hate those who look like me..."

Moron.

13 posted on 12/26/2016 10:25:14 AM PST by ex91B10 (We've tried the Soap Box,the Ballot Box and the Jury Box; ONE BOX LEFT! (ON HOLD starting 1/19/17))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
What's going to happen when her when her "Affirmative Action Scholarship" dries up?

I hope thee people live in fear for the next 16 years. It will help reduce the crime rate.

14 posted on 12/26/2016 10:26:13 AM PST by Cowboy Bob
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
They had came to the same realization I had: I am a black college student in a part of the country where a a lot of people had just made it very clear that they do not respect my skin color.

Liberalism of this strain is a cognitive dysfunction.
15 posted on 12/26/2016 10:26:32 AM PST by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If I was filthy rich I’d offer this dingbat a million bucks if she could tell me one thing Hitlery ever did for black women except to encourage then to kill their bbies.


16 posted on 12/26/2016 10:27:04 AM PST by GrandJediMasterYoda (Hillary Clinton IS a felon)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Suddenly I was hit with the realization that I was living in a different world ... a world in which many of my fellow citizens actually believe that "all lives matter" ... in which people take seriously King's "content of their character" speech ... in which white cultural imperialism -- appeals to competence, literacy, performance, honesty and other discredited Judeo-Christian, Eurocentric norms -- suddenly take on new life .... Yes, the world had changed in new and terrifying ways."
17 posted on 12/26/2016 10:28:15 AM PST by sphinx
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Watched in a room with “a table full of cupcakes” ... I thought the writer was going to say a room full of cupcakes.


18 posted on 12/26/2016 10:28:21 AM PST by Kipp
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I am a black college student in a part of the country where a a lot of people had just made it very clear that they do not respect my skin color.

This is what is so wrong with these people, they make it about skin color and not ideas. Is she implying that by not voting for Hillary that we were voting against Blacks? It's time for ironic pythy remarks, all that I have to say is the obvious.


19 posted on 12/26/2016 10:28:40 AM PST by antonia (Pants up, don't loot!)
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To: All

Sounds to me like she is inwardly ashamed of “being black”...

If she would concentrate LESS on “being black” and concentrate MORE on “being American”, she might feel better about herself...


20 posted on 12/26/2016 10:29:01 AM PST by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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