A disturbing video emerged on social media containing footage of a white American man yelling out racial slurs to an Arab-American man. The Arab man and his family were peacefully enjoying a public beach near their hotel in Texas.
What had originally happened was that two strange women came up to the Arab man, in order to get the Texan man to stop harassing them.
This situation brought these two men in conflict. Noria Elward, the Arab man’s daughter and the person who shot the video, later stated that she was extremely upset by the hotel’s reaction.
The hotel apparently allowed the racist man back in, even after the fact that the police had to step in, in order to stop him from verbally assaulting the Arab man.
What is worth of notice is not just the quantity of reference to ISIS and the amount of Islamophobia that the mere presence of an Arab incited in the mind and heart of this white American, it is also the consistent references to Donald Trump that the man kept making.
Congress can sign as many bills it desires, officials can refuse to implement racist decisions and law; governors and senators can openly claim that they will not uphold nor apply any law in their jurisdiction that reflects a direct attack on diversity and multiculturalism; and it would not matter.
Trump is president of the USA -and his party have a majority in the House- and this was sufficient to encourage racism and white supremacy, that was otherwise somewhat dormant.
It has created an environment where a white American man feels that he is entitled to hate speech and racial slurs because “Trump is his president”. This man genuinely feels that his president will condone and protect his right to racism, and he is not wrong.
I do believe, however, that this variant arrays of videos showing the splurge of racism that has temporally coincided with Trump’s victory is good for one main reason; it has shut down those who claim that Obama’s presidency has somehow ended racism, or that Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama’s rising popularity reflect an end to the reign of sexism.
Indeed -with such videos popping up everyday- no one can safely say that the USA is truly beyond the historically constitutionally enshrined and self-proclaimed right to manifest destiny, that is in itself premised on a framework of white supremacy.