Trump fuels call to action

Grassroots ideas missing in political discourse

By The Advocate, Editorial Board

Fear, anger and uncertainty grips people in cities nationwide in the wake of 60 million voters endorsing Donald Trump as our president-elect, and his policies to “make America great again.”

Trump’s resounding Electoral College victory, using a platform built on misogyny, nationalism and xenophobia, also comes with a Republican controlled House of Representatives and Senate.

Have we regressed to a time when gas was cheap, guns were abundant and minorities were confined to certain parts of town?  No, but now is the time to locally organize and make sure that does not happen by forming a political party that does not support corruption or fear mongering.

Research. Become politically aware, take over the streets, storm into a city hall meeting, write, shout, talk — be heard.

To protest Trump’s rise to commander-in-chief despite insulting immigrants, women and LGBT+ people with fearful rhetoric, Contra Costa College’s La Raza, Puente, ASU, Black Student Union groups held an Undivided March/Rally from the Student Services Plaza on campus to a sit-in at San Pablo City Hall on Thursday.

It is the start of a discussion that is needed at CCC because its community is made up of people who Trump targeted during his presidential campaign.

But grassroots organization is needed to harness this area’s cultural diversity. CCC can be a catalyst for a new political party or movement that will rise to replace the Democratic Party that failed to recognize our frustrations.

All the movement needs a leader. Someone to rise up and speak for those who are too afraid of the perverse racial divide widened by the results of this election. Half of the nation elected a man who called Mexican rapists and criminals; who said he would build a wall and will deport families, ban Muslims and allow LGBT+ rights be trampled on by certain state legislation.

Trump is our president-elect. Yet only a handful of student leaders and faculty were among the 100 or so people who marched the sidewalks of San Pablo Avenue.

This group was mainly comprised of Middle College High School and Gateway to College students. According to the state Chancellor’s Office DataMart, about 10,000 students were enrolled at CCC in 2015-16 academic year.

We are living through the most enlightening period in recent American history in one of the most diverse areas in the world, but less than one percent of CCC’s student population participated in its march.

Students who dissented against the results of this election should be proud. But only further organization can quell the underlying hate and ignorance that hides beneath society’s surface and still thrives.

Many people living in liberal and diverse cities were blindsided by the results of this election. We forget that we live in isolation to the rest of America, but we have been reminded.

We need to harness our frustrations, fears and anxieties as fuel to create a political movement that stands for all working class people and not just the majority.

People who are thinking about hiding —don’t. People of all religions, genders and ethnicities who reject fear mongering tactics and division need to organize under a new symbol.

The results of this election should not be surprising, but liberal America forgot that the roots of institutional racism were always part of the nation’s bedrock.

It’s our job to kill those roots through a new political movement that uses understanding and reason to trump fear.