Racial rants induce attacks

A renowned philosopher, Prof Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Professor of Philosophy at New York University Law School, predicted during the American Presidential elections that the US would go through a difficult period in many things including problems with race relations if the Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was voted as the President.

Prof Appiah also suggested that there was a willingness amongst a good number of Americans to do something about racism. “Rather than discouraging it (racism), he’s brought it out of the woodwork and encouraged it. Whether or not he’s personally racist, I have no idea. But that isn’t the problem, the problem is he’s encouraging it [racism] for his own political ends and that’s bad,” he noted.

Trump administration today may not admit to racism or may not even acknowledge racial crimes against non-Americans, yet this is a reality. The latest murder of humanity in the elimination of Srinivas Kuchibhotla and the grievous injuries suffered by another Indian, Medasani Alok Reddy, must be eye-openers to not only Indians but also all the others who have migrated to the United States of America seeking greener pastures. An American who tried to save Srinivas from the attacker was also injured. Ten days ago, another Warangal lad Vamsichand Reddy was also killed for no reason at all.

No one would say that there was no racism earlier. The very foundation of the nation is soaked in the blood of the natives. Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. However, many cited the election of Barack Obama, the country’s first black president in 2008 as a step forward in race relations.

Since winning the election, Trump has picked top advisers and cabinet officials whose careers are chequered by accusations of racially biased behaviour. Media had carefully compiled several of examples that are pointers to Trump's racist regime. Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and senior counsellor, was an executive of Breihart, a news site that Bannon himself dubbed as the "home of the alt-right' - a euphemism that describes a loose coalition of white supremacists.

Retired General Mike Flynn, who Trump chose as his national security adviser, had tweeted earlier "fear of Muslims is rational." Senator Jeff Sessions who was nominated as Attorney General of the US had declared in the past that the only reason he did not join Ku Klux Klan was because its members smoked marijuana.

In all, 900 hate incidents were recorded in the first ten days of Trump's office itself, going by the Southern Poverty Law Center finding. Children are asking their coloured classmates to sit in the back seats of school buses and attackers of non-whites are using Trump's language to taunt their victims.

Trump's vow to halt citizenship as a birthright itself explains how racist one could be. Even though the Mexicans have the lowest crime rate in the US, Trump attributes a major share of the crime to the Mexicans. What else does his ban order, now put on hold by the US courts, on immigrants from seven countries tells us?