No, Mr. Trump, My Mother is Not Voting for You
“Go home to mom. Go home to mommy. And your mother is voting for Trump! She’s voting for Trump! True.” — Donald Trump responding to protesters at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania
Well, actually, Mr. Trump, my mother would never vote for you.
Mr. Trump’s comments full of condescension and misogynistic undertones were directed at a small group of nonviolent protesters during a rally Friday in Erie, Pennsylvania. My young brother was among those protesting. The protests were evoked by Trump’s comments on recent media coverage of police in America. He said, “If [police] have five hundred thousand incidents, all positive, beautifully handled [incidents]; one bad thing happens, that one bad thing is on the news for two weeks and it’s a disgrace. Ok. It’s a disgrace.” At this, my brother, who was not planning to object, was compelled to chant “Black lives matter!” What followed was an accusation that is as wild and miraculous as the rise of Trump himself. The 70 year old Republican presidential nominee claimed that my mother, yes MY mother, would be voting for him in November (Or perhaps that she will be voting for his brand. We’re all a little confused as to why he referred to himself in the third person.) Yet, I am writing to make clear that never would my mother, nor any of her four children, vote for Mr. Trump.
Trump began his comments with condescension of the young group of objectors, which is not surprising considering his support among voters age 18–29 is a meager 9%, according to a recent McClatchy-Marist poll. His blatant condescension amplifies his message that young people have no place in the political process; that their anger and calls for peace and justice are deserving of ridicule. His comment to “go home to mom” exposes the insensitivity of a campaign that pokes fun at a significant portion of the electorate that just won’t stop whining over issues like the systematic terrorization of black communities by police.
Trump’s suppression of the perceived whining of my brother and his fellow protesters is a dangerous response to the cries of youth, the marginalized, and the victims of police brutality in Erie. Not only does it reject free speech and the actual sufferings of victims, but it openly mocks them. It supports a false narrative that if only the marginalized would quit their whining and be a little tougher, their misfortune would end. In Erie, PA especially, young voices, black voices, can no longer be treated like the five year old who dropped his ice cream cone.
Trump will not quell this “whining” in Erie, however, where the local police department is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for the violent treatment and arrest of Montrice Bolden, who suffered an orbital and cranial fracture, among other injuries, while being handcuffed, tackled, and beaten by police (you can view the video here). Trump, like 65% of white Americans, believes that the recent killings of black men by police are isolated incidents. By contrast, 81% of black Americans believe the killings to be part of a broader pattern of how police treat African Americans. Couple that with the recent investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department, which found that, indeed, across the board the unfair and violent treatment of African Americans was part of a larger pattern of policing, and the true picture of police relations in America becomes clearer. Of course, there are beautiful incidents of police intervention, but to say that it is a disgrace to focus on “isolated incidents” of brutality in front of a community still raw from the footage of the beating of a black man at the hands of police is, in a word, disgraceful.
As my brother and others were being escorted out of Erie Insurance Arena, onlookers shouted “White lives matter! All lives matter! You’re not black!” This, too, is to be expected in a country where 57% of white Americans say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities, according to a recent PRRI/Brookings Institution report. It is my hope that these white Americans vainly calling for rhetorical equality are simply a vocal minority in Erie, where it is the footage of black men, not white men, that fills the daily news.
It is comments like these by Mr. Trump, justified by a rejection of political correctness, which explains why literally 0% of black people in Pennsylvania support him. It is also why my mother, as a racially conscious Erie resident, would never support a candidate who justifies patterns of misogyny and police violence. It is my white mother who instilled in her white children the values of inclusion, nonviolence, peace, justice, solidarity, and the courage to speak out when powerful members of the world community irreverently wreak havoc on the powerless.
Mr. Trump, you owe the people of Erie an apology. Mr. Trump, you owe my mother an apology.
Authored by Nicholas J. Scrimenti, student at Georgetown University, and Joseph P. Scrimenti, resident of Erie, Pennsylvania