White Discussion

The other day I watched an episode of Van Jones’ The Messy Truth, and an observation by one of the participants struck me very hard. He sat down for a discussion with four white women, in Gettysburg Pennsylvania, who are friends, but voting for different candidates. Two women were Trump voters, and the other two were not.
During the discussion one woman said she would never vote for a Clinton. Van immediately asked her why. Before I go there. I want to mention that during the conversation these women discussed how at one time they, along with the rest of their community, got together to oust a bigoted school board president. They didn’t want a bigot in a position of authority over their schools, and their kids. And so they did what they believed was right, and had him removed. This begs the question: If you know that type of person is wrong for your schools, why would you think they are right to lead the nation? 

One woman said she hoped Trump wasn’t really like how he's talked. She hopes, she said, that deep down, that’s not really who he is. Yeah, no. That’s exactly who he is, and that reason isn’t good enough to justify the double standard. The other Trump supporter echoed this, but cemented her position by stating that she’d never vote for a Clinton, at which point Van asked why. 

Her response: “I was in the military.” She then proceeded to state that it was during the time of Bill Clinton’s presidency, under which military benefits were cut and she lost her dental coverage. Just let that sink in. She’d never vote for a Clinton, because her dental benefits were cut. She’s not a bigot. She’s not a racist, but she’d vote for a bigoted, racist man who has no respect for women, or the military, because under Bill Clinton’s presidency she lost her dental benefits.

This is the epitome of privilege, specifically white privilege, because Donald Trump isn’t attacking whites. He’s attacking PoC, specifically Latinxs & Muslims. He launched his campaign attacking Latinx immigrants. He called them criminals, drug dealers, and rapists. Since then he has consistently demonized them, and pit them against whites.

Angry, racist, and paranoid whites have bought wholesale into it.  But let's be honest here, that's not a new narrative. Whites have always portrayed PoC as violent criminals. They have never stopped, and they never will. Any assertion that racism is not a motivating factor in this election is either denial or an obvious, intentional lie. 

And yet here is this woman, who believes herself to be anything but racist or bigoted, but who has no reservations about voting for a man who denigrates women, demonizes PoC, and doesn’t pay taxes, because when Bill Clinton was the President she lost her dental benefits. You know why she lost her dental coverage? Because people like the man she’s voting for don’t pay their taxes. 

Her position reflects that she believes her medical benefits are more important than other people’s lives. Donald Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would cut medical coverage for millions of people, but she’s fine with that. She’s fine with Donald Trump overturning a woman’s rights to make her own decisions about her own body, because it won’t affect her. She’s got no problem with Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate the minimum wage. Never mind that poor people, who earn minimum wage, despite working full time jobs, often cannot afford medical coverage, let alone dental.But she’ll never vote for a Clinton. I understand. Our vote is our voice, and we get to vote for whomever it is we wish. But we have to own that choice. We have to accept what that choice says and what it means.
This woman and her friends say she's not a bigot. She’s not a racist. That may be, but it's very easy to be "not a racist" when your community is racially homogenous, and social challenges are limited to minor differences within that community. It's easy to be "not a bigot" when people whose sexual orientation, or gender identity aren't in direct contradiction to what you consider normal. It's entirely possible, that she's neither a bigot nor a racist, but she is a privileged white woman who likely has no idea what people outside of her community stand to lose under a Trump presidency, nor does she care. Not everyone who's voting for Trump is a bigot, or racist, or a misogynist, but Trump is all of those things, and any vote for him condones them.