I've experienced a new level of racism since Donald Trump went after Latinos

[47of74]

Tina Vasquez had this piece in The Guardian the other day.

Donald Trump’s hate speech against Latinos seems to be emboldening white Americans’ racism. For many, it may be hard to wrap their minds around the fact that that a reality TV star and failed businessman who characterized Mexican immigrants as the “most unwanted people,” calling them “criminals, drug dealers,” and “rapists”, was not only running for president, but is now polling well.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was running errands in my neighborhood, a stranger asked me if I was “illegal”. Around 10 minutes earlier another stranger asked me if I spoke English. Both were white and one of them even called me “senorita.” Then, late last week, I was standing in line to use the ATM when a white man approached me cautiously, asking if I spoke English. He was lost and said he didn’t want to be in a “bad area” longer than he needed to. He was holding a King Taco cup in his hand. I’ve seen white guys like him at the neighborhood taco spot. Stay for the tacos, leave before you have to interact with Mexicans who aren’t serving you.

This is the world Trump wants when he says he’s going to “make America great again.” It’s the America of 1950s TV shows, where people of color don’t exist in the lives of white Americans unless they’re being served or entertained by them. This appears to be a world longed for by many, as a recent poll found that 47% of white Americans look upon Trump “favorably.”

[lunamagica]

1. That's awful...

[Fred Sanders]

2. White folks however have noticed no increase in the level of intolerance or persecution towards them...not that

some of the white folk tea people will still laughingly insist it is they being demonized purely for political profit.

Safe in the bosom of the RW media echo chamber they can live this fantasy unmolested by fact or reason.

[Rozlee]

3. I'm Latina and live in an upscale white neighborhood.

I'm married to an Anglo and it's been fairly par for the course to experience some sort of discrimination. From the whisper I heard behind me at the checkout counter from the man telling his wife that 'watch, she's going to use food stamps,' to being waylaid on my way to the powder room at a local Mexican restaurant by a customer who wanted me to refill his drink. That was the way of the world. But, yes, I've noticed that the climate has chilled considerably. I wear designer clothes and have nice jewelry and an expensive car, but I'm sure people probably see a drug lord's wife when they look at me without my white husband. People used to smile and be polite to me, but I've gotten cool looks and forced smiles lately. A town that's 87% Republican was never a hotbed of inclusion and tolerance, but they tried to put on a game face on it. The facade has cracked a bit now. The chill in the air isn't from the approaching autumn.

[Demeter]

4. Most people need permission to be rude or worse. Trump is giving it.

Manners so often is barely even skin deep.

[Beartracks]

5. Remember when Republicans said Bill Clinton was a bad role model?

After the "I didn't inhale" bit and, of course, the Lewinsky affair, Republicans on all the talking head shows regaled eachother with stories about how kids would mimic the President because, when it comes to drugs and extramarital sex, they would think, "it's okay if the President does it."

So is there a similar "it's okay if a Presidential candidate does it" phenomenon? Because it seems Trump's candidacy has certainly legitimized prejudice in a big way.

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[D Gary Grady]

6. The 1950s may have been better

"It’s the America of 1950s TV shows, where people of color don’t exist in the lives of white Americans unless they’re being served or entertained by them."

African Americans were pretty poorly treated in 1950s television (and not just then), but the situation with Latin Americans and especially Mexican Americans was more complicated. The Cisco Kid, for example, was a popular Western that featured a pair of Mexican protagonists. (Star Duncan Reynoldo was actually from Romania, and Leo Carillo, who played his sidekick, was born in California to an old family with Castilian roots.) At least toward Mexicans with caucasian features there was relatively little animosity from the bulk of Americans, and in fact U.S. culture was fascinated with Latin America in the mid-20th century.

Indeed, as John Tirman points out in this article for The Washington Spectator, "Before the 1965 immigration act, Mexicans and other Latinos could enter the U.S. at will."

I of course don't mean to suggest that everything was fine with respect to the treatment of Latinos in 1950s America, but in at least some respects I think things are probably worse today.