(Cartoon image is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.)The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is reporting that there has been at least 437 incidents of intimidation and harassment against members of minority groups between November 9th and November 14th -- only a six day period following the election of Donald Trump (or about 73 incidents each day).
After watching Trump spout racist, bigoted, and xenophobic values for moths while campaigning, this should surprise no one -- although it should disgust everyone. Religious bigots, immigrant-haters, and white supremacists have been encouraged by Trump's campaign of hate, and feel vindicated by his election.
They now see their sick views as being the norm in the United States, and believe the public is now on their side. Sadly, they may well be true for a large segment of the population. It's hard to see how Trump could have been elected without that.
We can expect to see these hateful actions to increase in the coming days and months. The haters haven't felt this good in years, and they will take the opportunity to get back at the minorities they hate, and they people they see as having held them down (i.e., liberals).
But this is not a time for decent Americans to stop the fight for equality. In fact, there has never been a time when that fight has been needed more.
The chart below is from the SPLC:
Most of the reports involved anti-immigrant incidents (136), followed by anti-black (89) and anti-LGBT (43). Some reports (8) included multiple categories like anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant. The "Trump" category (41) refers to incidents where there was no clear defined target, like the pro-Trump vandalism of a "unity" sign in Connecticut.
