Racially Motivated Violence Under Donald Trump
By: Leena Elbayoumi
During Donald Trump’s presidency, racially motivated violence soared due to his divisive rhetoric.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 867 incidents of harassment occurred in the first ten days after Trump’s election to the presidency. The FBI further reports that there was a 17% increase in hate crimes in 2017 from the previous year, of which almost 60% were motivated by race and ethnicity. A study based on FBI data found that since Trump’s election there has been a noticeable increase in hate crimes in areas where Trump won by a larger margin.
The uptick in racially motivated hate crimes can be attributed to Trump’s rhetoric. His supporters are emboldened by his crass statements; he reaffirms their racist beliefs and holds them publicly. After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, when a woman was run over and killed by a neo-Nazi, Trump said that there were “very fine people, on both sides.” During the first presidential debate, he told the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, to “stand back and stand by,” terrifying to anyone who does not have light skin.
The recent Capitol Hill riot which occurred Jan. 6, 2021 began after the ‘Save America’ Trump rally. At the rally, former President Trump told his supporters that “if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Soon after, swarms of rioters stormed the Capitol building, many even climbing the outside walls, forcing senators and representatives to go into lockdown and pause the electoral vote count.
His violent rhetoric triggers a certain demographic: white men with racist and sexist tendencies. They look up to him because he gives them back the power they feel they have lost: the power to blatantly discriminate against people of color.
Six people of color have been found dead from hanging since the murder of George Floyd. This could be a direct response to the protests against racism and police brutality. All deaths were ruled as suicides, leaving many people critical of the investigations as lazy and unmotivated.
“We’re talking about multiple people hanging from trees across America in the middle of a race war that’s going,” said Anthony Scott, who lives near where a Hispanic man was recently found dead by hanging, in an interview with KRIV.
The string of hangings have spurred racial tensions and fears of lynchings as well as racial violence. More and more racists are finding the confidence to attack Black people with the belief that they will not be convicted. Trump went as far as to say that he would pay their legal fees if they became violent with protesters; this was only reinforced by indifferent police departments’ neglectful investigations.
Furthermore, Trump supporters susceptible to Trump’s rhetoric denounce the Black Lives Matter movement, fearing the mythical spread of “Black supremacy,” the belief that Black people are superior to people of other races. Denying their privilege, they victimize themselves, believing that they are truly oppressed. According to sociologist Charles Gallagher, some whites see themselves as a minority, blinding them to the blatant racism affecting people of color in the United States.
In 2015, two brothers were charged with beating a Hispanic homeless man. “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” said Scott Leader, one of the suspects, when speaking with the police afterward. The suspects were inspired by Trump’s comments about Hispanic people and acted with violence. This is a clear example of the president’s racist comments encouraging his supporters to attack minorities.
In another incident, a white nationalist leader, Matthew Heimbach, was videotaped assaulting a Black female protester at a Trump campaign rally. After protesters filed a lawsuit against him, he wrote in a court filing that he “acted pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President” and that, if he’s found liable for damages, “any liability must be shifted to one or both of them.” At the rally, Trump had yelled “get ’em out of here” at protesters, and Heimbach had yelled at and pushed the protesters in response to Trump’s words.
Trump makes white people feel that they’re under attack and oppressed by people of color. He says immigrants are criminals and that “they’re taking your jobs.” By insinuating that an influx of immigrants inevitably leads to the theft of jobs previously belonging to hardworking white men and women, he divides white people and people of color. He makes his supporters feel powerful again while trying to subjugate people of color. While raising the voice of the white man, he stifles the rich voices of Africans, Asians, Arabs, Hispanics, and other people of color.
With this false pretense of white (mostly male) oppression, people with white privilege feel free to ignore and belittle the Black Lives Matter movement. They feel under attack and want to restore their role as the prime group. Trump paints his supporters’ image as classic Americans trying to make an honest living in a cruel world. The reality is that his rhetoric inspires supporters to fight for their right to exclude, insult, assault, and ban people of color. Now that Trump isn’t commander-in-chief, perhaps racists will no longer feel as emboldened to partake in racial violence.