Donald Trump Warning: Side Effects Include Racist Backlash

A few weeks have passed since the election and people refuse to settle down. Since Donald Trump's transformation from a mocked character on SNL to the elected President, the news has been painted with protests, hatred, and racism. It's easy to sit in front of the TV or scroll through your phone and see the horrible things that certain Trump supporters are doing, like spray painting swastikas or sending hate mail to mosques. But as with most things, you have to see it to believe it. After only 3 days of using social media as my source of information regarding the hatred racists have been spreading, I got a glimpse of it first hand. My mom was in the elevator of my grandparents apartment complex, talking on the phone to my aunt in Farsi. A middle aged, Caucasian woman stepped into the elevator and told her to speak English because "this is America". When my mom told her to mind her own business, the woman continued to tell her to stop speaking whatever "Asian language" she was talking in until reaching her floor. My mom has lived in this country for over 30 years, and hasn't been a target of racism since she was living in Texas during the Iran hostage crisis. I've never felt such anger at someone that I don't even know, but the fact that the felt that it was her place to tell someone else how to live in this country that was founded and built by immigrants just bewilders me. It is not a coincidence that there has been a trend of rising racist actions through the country in the past few weeks. Whether or not Trump is going to build a wall or do any of the other racist things he claimed, he has been successful in justifying racism. He has appealed to the racist minds of people who have been told that it is socially unacceptable to discriminate against others or tell people to speak English, and has made them believe that this behavior is acceptable. People feel like if the President can say it, so can they. I have seen it for myself, and I know that having a bigot in office means that we should be expecting a lot more racist behavior in the near future.