How Did Your Neighbors Vote? White Racism in Your Backyard

The Distance Between (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

I.

I live in New Jersey, a supposedly Blue state.  But here's the more refined truth.  I live in a town where my neighbors cast votes--the majority in each of the nine polling sites-- for Donald Trump. On every measure possible, in each polling area (there are nine), the majority of my neighbors voted for Trump and with it--white ideological hatred.

I live in Ringwood, NJ, a largely white suburb of New York City--a town that is a mix of blue-collar and professionals. And here's an important truth: well before this election, I had firsthand knowledge that this community reeks of racism and equally appalling: the lemming factor. Lemmings are little rodents that blindly follow each other off cliffs. Being polite by saying nothing in the face of racist and misogynistic speech and actions, allows for such ideology to be seen as normal and to become normal. It teaches our children very, very early that it is permissible to hurt and hate others because of perceived differences. It shows our children who, other, is. That's what the lemming factor creates. It is not only white nationalists we might fear. More so, it is the white majority's silence on matters of equality and decency that is far deadlier. By following along, lemming-like, the appalling behaviors become normalized and grave harm is done.


II.

In the suburbs, many of us don't talk about race or racism especially if you are white and I am. More than a decade ago my son, a beautiful Korean child, started first grade here. He would learn about racism those early days of school in Ringwood, at the tender age of six. We all would.

It was early September and warm when he came home from school and asked, Mommy, where is my red coat?  He had been to school for just a few days. The red coat was a snow parka and as it was well past 80 degrees, I naturally wondered why he wanted to wear it. My son had never been to school in our town.  He went to a progressive preschool and kindergarten and this was our first encounter with the local public school.

My son told his dad and me, "I'm going to pull the zipper all the way up and disappear." He said this as only a six-year-old can. He said this as if such a thing would be a solution, rather than a horror. My beautiful boy was going to hide his face and disappear.


III.

It seemed that some of the older, white boys on the school bus, those ignorant, mean white children, had already learned how to spew racist crap. They made my son's trip each day to first grade a misery until we put a stop by removing our son from the public schools in town. These children called him racist slurs, thinking he was Chinese. They let him know how different he was from them and how that difference--what he fundamentally was--was wrong. Their hatred was a viable, living thing that pulsed and grew with the silence of others. These sad boys didn't give up as they were committed to harming. The bus driver kept driving and the other children on the bus did what white children are taught to do: they kept quiet and bore witness to a six year old being abused and learned how to blame the victim. That's a main lesson taught in white suburbia.

And what about my neighbors?  You know them. Those moms who walk their kids to the bus stop each morning, a cup of coffee in hand. You see them waving as the bus departs. Their faces full of bright smiles and hope. Well, I spoke up immediately to the moms at the end of my street after the bus had left and they mostly dismissed what I told them. They dismissed what I said as if it such actions were nothing more than a nuisance. One neighbor told me that she was surprised the boys would act like that as my son was almost white. Another quickly said it wasn't about race. She explained how her white son had been made fun of because he was shorter than the others, and that's how some people just were.  The rest of the white women? They just stayed quiet as white people do. That day marked a defining moment for me. I would be quiet no more.


IV.

Rob and I thought we had made a tragic error moving to this town and now I know differently. This morning the election results in our county show that this misery my son learned at the hands of a group of white boys and the silence of other whites, could have been found in any of the towns where there exists a majority of white people. The voting results make concrete numerically the hatred that simmers here. If we are brave enough to look closely at the demographic evidence from this election, I suspect we will see similar voting patterns wherever large clusters of white people reside.

This is a hard truth to say out loud. But how else might we interpret this election? White people voted yesterday overwhelmingly for both a bigot and a misogynist who was endorsed by the KKK.

Yes, the KKK.


V.

This is the breakdown in my town (from here):


                         Turnout Percentage      Clinton            Trump          LaRiva            Stein        Johnson
Ringwood 1       70.84%                         301                 389                  1                    5               23
Ringwood 2       71.13%                         296                 349                  0                   15              14
Ringwood 3       71.05%                         253                 296                  0                   11              22
Ringwood 4       66.98%                         311                 577                  2                   15              14
Ringwood 5       67.36%                         331                 392                  1                   10              18
Ringwood 6       70.09%                         303                 312                  0                    9               16
Ringwood 7       63.96%                         275                 323                  0                    8                7
Ringwood 8       70.19%                         254                 359                  1                    6               10
Ringwood 9       68.9%                           252                 336                  0                    6               20


I live in the 9th polling area where nearly 70 percent of registered voters turned out to vote. 336 of my neighbors voted for the Trump-Pence ticket and 278 did not.  If we alone were deciding this election, the Trump-Pence ticket would have won. That's sobering.

I imagine some of my neighbors who voted for Trump-Pence might offer different reasons for why they cast their vote as they did. Perhaps some were fervent anti-abortionists. Perhaps others couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton. But underneath those reasons, my neighbors had to be able to hold in their hands the KKK endorsement Trump and Pence received. They had to have been okay with that. Their vote shows they condoned Trump's wall-building, race-baiting, derogatory comments about women, and banning Muslims due to their faith. No matter what they told themselves as they cast that vote, they had to have made peace with all of that. For it is impossible to dismiss the hate-rhetoric that has been a signature of the Trump-Pence ticket.

Whereas their vote makes them complicit to the ugly ideology that is Trump, I know that my silence makes me equally so. To remain silent in the presence of racist ideology in whatever form it takes, is to condone that hatred. To be silent when the guy next store spews some ugly misogynist jokes is to condone the hatred of women. To listen silently to a neighbor down the street spew racist gossip that isolates one from the group is to approve of that hatred. To listen and not denounce the lies being told about Muslims, being told about Jews, being told about whomever is other is to condone and agree with the falsehoods being stated.

Our silence gives permission for hate to grow.


VI.

Early this morning as we listened to the announcement that Trump had won, I confessed to my son that the results scared me. During the election, each time Trump railed about the Chinese or South Koreans, I worried for my son's safe-being. Having lost Rob earlier this year, I know how quickly a life can end. I know how quickly and decidedly harm can occur.  The thought that some of my neighbors might embrace the violence as they have embraced this racist ticket alarms me.

But what worries me more is that there is a part of me that wants to be silent, that wants to not trouble the waters.

I want to believe that my silence might protect my son. Just writing this here makes me feel vulnerable especially in light of the crazy Trump followers we have all seen displayed. But I know better. The issues of race, gender, and economic inequality will not be settled by the voices of minority groups alone no matter how bravely they speak out. They cannot and should not shoulder this misery. White people must rise up and be vocal in our local neighborhoods with our neighbors. We must say that hating others, whomever other is, is wrong all the time without exception.  

There are no exceptions. 

We must fight for integration everywhere: on our blocks, at our schools, in our houses of worship. It is in joining other, that other can become neighbor, friend. I urge you to be vocal and take action. The cost of our silence is far too much for others to bear.

I am starting where I live.  How about you?

  

Because She's a Woman...Huh?

Vote (M.A. Reilly, 2012)

I cringe each time I hear a woman qualify her vote.  For example, earlier this morning a woman being interviewed on NPR offered, almost apologetically, her admission that she's voting for Hillary Clinton, "not because she's a woman (rather long pause), but because she has so much experience." Since Secretary Clinton began her campaign, the response from many have been to silence gender as if gender in the United States might somehow not be relevant.

Does gender in America not matter?

I voted this afternoon in NJ for Secretary Clinton.  I did so, in part, because she is a strong woman and we are deeply in need of a strong, smart, capable, and experienced leader.  Hillary Clinton's life speaks clearly to the courageous action she has had to show in order for her to be poised to be our next president.  Her victory is a victory for all women, especially for our daughters. That ceiling she is cracking has been in place for as long as there has been the United States and there are a legion of men (and sadly) women who don't want to see it cracked.  I say break on through.

We need a woman to lead. It certainly helps that she is also the most qualified of the 18+ candidates who have made a bid for president and truly the most qualified candidate who has run for president in my life time. Advocate for women and children, First Lady of Arkansas and First Lady of the United States, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State. There is no person running for president with these or equal qualifications. No one. And all the recent comments that experience now doesn't matter is more bunk, more examples of how insidious sexism is. If Hillary Clinton were male, the tenor of the primaries would have been different and the derogatory, sexists and often empty rhetoric that has been generated for years would have been silent.  Just recall the Benghazi hearings (our tax dollars at work).

Gender matters.

Sexism isn't limited to being an interpersonal matter.  Rather, it is an institutional one.  It is what allows both women and men to report with ease that they will vote for a qualified man they don't "like", but will not do the same for a woman.  It is sexist rhetoric that fuels such dispositions like:  "I won't vote for Hillary because she's not 'likable.'" or "Clinton is too aggressive" or what I heard last night, "Clinton is flat. She doesn't inspire passion like Bill and Bernie."or " I'm not comfortable with her as president. I would feel safer with  ______ (fill in the name of a man)."

Really?

One only needs to see the plethora of reports that continue to show that a woman doing the same work as a man in the United States is paid less. Given the lack of movement on current pay gap it will take close to 100 years to close that gap.

100 years. Can your daughters wait that long?  Can our country? Can the world?

Sexism is coloring this election as it colors our lives. It is always present.  Misogynistic ideology has been given new voice. Katha Pollitt, expressed this well earlier this year in The Nation when she wrote:

Choose Bernie if you like—I won’t say a word against him. But don’t reject the first woman in history who could win the White House because she doesn’t fit your notion of how women should behave. Men put a thumb on the scale for men all the time: It’s called being “gender neutral” while defining leadership in male terms. (Can you imagine a 74-year-old democratic socialist named Bernice Sanders making a run like Bernie? The jokes write themselves.) And overt misogyny still exists. You’ll never persuade me that “Bernie bros”—the men who harass female Hillary supporters with patronizing, insulting, and sometimes-obscene tweets and posts—are just Internet will-o’-the-wisps. But if you want hard numbers, how about this: According to Gallup, 8 percent of people say they would never vote for a qualified woman for president. That’s nearly one in 12 voters. But if one in 12 female primary voters is choosing Hillary just because she’s a woman—and not also because she’s experienced, super-smart, shares their values, and looks more likely to win the general—I would be surprised.

Now is the time for a woman to lead and that woman is Hillary Clinton.  I look forward to seeing Secretary Clinton become the first President of the United States.  I only wish Rob could see this history being made. He would have proudly casted his vote for Hillary today.