Melkezadek
Member
As a minority gay person, I doubt they give me much empathy themselves.
We have to treat these people like children, incapable of making rational choices. These apologists can't absolve them of the fact they went into this with their eyes wide open. It's either racism or apathy towards racism. Ask a Trump supporter how they feel about BLM. Ask them about refugees or immigration. For many of us, their answers aren't a point of political disagreement. As a black man, I don't have that privilege. The crowd of apologists don't want us go call them out on it as to alienate them. "We need their votes, so don't even bring up issues race, let alone calling them racists."
People try to throw Obama in your face, as if their voting for him means they couldn't possibly have racial resentment, but I don't buy that at all. Do you really think Obama spoke on racial issues with the WWC? The last thing he needed to do, as a black man, was to campaign on that. It's why they like guys like Ben Carson, he didn't make them feel the "guilt". People also want to ignore the fact that 2016 was an incredibly racially charged year, with every day feeling like it came with a newly filmed police shooting. Everyone was talking about it and the lines were being drawn in the sand even then. Everyone had an opinion on Colin Kaeperick. Everyone had an opinion on refugees and bathroom bills. All these charged topics "pushed" them to the right, as discussion took center stage.
We don't have to cater to Trump supporters. We have to address the 47% of registered voters who didn't vote. While I don't appreciate their apathy towards Trump, they didn't make the conscious decision to vote for a candidate that was obviously tapping into the racial resentment deep rooted in this country. They at least recognized him as "bad" for reasons anyone with eyes and ears could see. I can work with that.