As a South Asian with South Asian and Middle Eastern friends, I definitely feel the effects of the post-election, racially-motivated hysteria. Nowadays, if you look at the comments section of an article with even the slightest mention of a person of color (especially an African American, Hispanic or Middle Eastern individual) the comments section is riddled with prejudice.
You may have heard the recent story about Timothy Caughman, a homeless African American who was killed by white supremacist James Jackson who had traveled to New York to kill innocent black men. Some of the people in the comments section of articles about this incident were saying that James Jackson’s actions were in response to how African Americans have allegedly been acting. To put it simply, people were excusing a murderer for killing an innocent man because the victim was African American. Even more horrifying were the people who were applauding Jackson’s actions.
Another article was about a Hispanic family, and the journalist clearly stated that they are U.S. citizens. Still, multiple people in the comments were calling to “deport them”. Yet another article talked about how Cadbury had halal certification (this was later revealed as a hoax) and people went into a frenzy on Twitter, claiming that they wouldn’t purchase from a company that allegedly supported Islam. The thing is, Cadbury’s products are automatically halal, because they contain no meat.
The story about the Indian engineer saddens me because after Trump’s election my Muslim and Latino friends were uneasy and although I worried for them I didn’t feel the need to worry with them, but now the racial tensions have risen so high in this country that I’m beginning to feel fear myself.
I believe that after the election racists and their ilk have felt far more comfortable expressing their archaic opinions and acting upon them.
Edit: I’m not trying to generalize the president or any of his supporters. Like with any large group of people, there are extremists, but those extremists are not reflective of the entire group.