It what appears to be an Alt Right celebration breaking out across the country, Van Jones has summed it up with a new term “white lash”.
America has been forced into a new era and the direction looks like a political horror film. New terms that mirror racism, discrimination and hate of the old; has landed in the White House with a new term Alt-Right. The chairman of Breitbart News (news outlet for Alt-Right) Steve Bannon will be President-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist in the White House. Red flags immediately popped up with the appointment Bannon because “alt-right” is considered more extreme than mainstream conservatism.
Bannon once described Breitbart News as the “platform for the alt-right,” or alternative right. It’s a brand of far-right conservatism that generally embraces and promotes white nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny. The alt-right has no formal ideology, although various sources have stated that white nationalism is fundamental.
Recently on CNN, Van Jones was giving a refreshing prospective and challenge, to address the roots racism in America. Jones a commentator for CNN coined a term that is trending and putting a face to white America’s actions and the spirit of bigotry that the Trump campaign has brought out in a bold, fearful, concerning and unsettling way.
Jones stated after the election, “You tell your kids don’t be a bully, you tell your kids don’t be a bigot… and then you have this outcome. You have people putting children to bed tonight and they are afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of ‘How do I explain this to my children?'”
Jones said his Muslim friends were texting him, asking him if they should leave the country.
Acknowledging many voters were rebelling against a system they felt had failed them, Jones said there were ugly racial sentiments at work as well.
“We haven’t talked about race. This is a white lash. This was a white lash against a changing country. It was white lash against a black president in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes.”
As Americans debated the pros and the cons of president –elect by Trump appointing Bannaon chief strategist in the White House does not calm any concerns.
Racially discriminatory acts have taken place all across the United States including California since Trump’s election. At the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Muslim students found “Trump” scrawled on the door of their prayer room, female Muslim student in Louisiana was brutally assaulted by 2 Trump supporters there Hijab ripped off, kids at breakfast taunting Hispanic kids chanting build the wall, a group of white girls teasing blacks and Hispanics on a bus with go to the back of the bus, Oregon University VP of Student Life sending students a polite warning, students passing out deportation slips as a joke at a California middle school. The list is long and saddening.
The flip side of “white lash” is the push back of minorities and whites with protest breaking out all across the United States. While most marches and rallies have been peaceful, police cars with vulgar F**K Trump spray painted on the side have occurred and figures of Trumps head being burned.
The divide and anger in this country is so loud and like Van Jones said it must be addressed but mainstream news cycles continue to ignore racism with no more than a passive mention. They tend to stick to politics as usual.
One example to learn from Alt-Right and the founding fathers as Trump likes to refer to, their focus was legislation, laws and such. So marching is good but protesters must begin to shift as the Big Six did and in turn had the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s time to get with law makers, special interest, the ACLU and others and challenge the white lash of Alt Right. New terms new era but nothing new under the sun.
