Following Donald Trump's win in this year's presidential election, Toni Morrison wrote a powerful essay that addresses how and why the Republican president won.
Titled "Mourning For Whiteness" and taken from the November 21 issue of the New Yorker, the essay argues that Trump won because of the terror of privileged white men in the face of a rapidly diversifying country.
"Under slave laws, the necessity for color rankings was obvious, but in America today, post-civil-rights legislation, white people's conviction of their natural superiority is being lost. Rapidly lost," Morrison begins. "There are 'people of color' everywhere, threatening to erase this long-understood definition of America. And what then? Another black President? A predominantly black Senate? Three black Supreme Court Justices? The threat is frightening."
Morrison ultimately argues that white Americans (especially white men) are so afraid of the collapse of white privilege that they "flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength."
"The comfort of being 'naturally better than,' of not having to struggle or demand civil treatment, is hard to give up," she adds.
She then concludes with the following:
"On Election Day, how eagerly so many white voters — both the poorly educated and the well educated — embraced the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump. The candidate whose company has been sued by the Justice Department for not renting apartments to black people. The candidate who questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, and who seemed to condone the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester at a campaign rally. The candidate who kept black workers off the floors of his casinos. The candidate who is beloved by David Duke and endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan."
The essay is definitely a necessary read, which you can check out in its entirety here.
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