The Trump Effect (2016- ) is what the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls the effect that Donald Trump has been having on US schoolchildren.
Trump running for president has led to more open racism among some schoolchildren and fear and confusion among others. On both sides there has been more anger, shouting and less patience for opposing views. Some fight, some cry.
Trump’s bad example, which appears on television coast to coast and on the Internet pole to pole, undermines democratic values schoolteachers try to teach, like respect, dignity, honesty, listening to others, and the need for facts and reason.
The SPLC surveyed teachers across the US from March 23rd to April 2nd 2016. It was not a scientific study, but with 2,000 teachers writing in, it is the largest, richest survey of its kind.
Some teachers report little change other than students being way more interested in the election.
A third of teachers report an increase of open racism and xenophobia. They hear stuff like:
- “Trump! Trump! Trump!” (tauntingly)
- “When Trump wins, you and your family will get sent back.”
- “loser”
- “deadbeat”
- “just saying what everyone is thinking”
- “telling it like it is”
- “terrorist”, “ISIS” and “bomber” (applied to Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus)
The N-word is being used more. “Dirty Mexican” is used at schools where it was not used a year before.
The progress some schools have made against bullying is being undone.
Two-thirds of teachers say students are upset and afraid, not just Muslim and Mexican students, but Sikh, Hindu, Latino and even Black students. They are “hurt”, “dejected”, feel that “everyone hates them”, that “they don’t belong here” that they have “no value” to the country, etc.
Some Black schoolchildren fear Trump will send them to prison camps, Africa or make them slaves.
One kindergartener asks every day: “Is the wall here yet?”
Some students beg their teachers not to vote for Trump because he will send their parents out of the country.
A teacher in Virginia said:
“My second-graders are scared. They’re scared of being sent back to their home countries. They’re scared of losing their education. As their teacher, I hug them each day to let them know they are safe and they are loved.”
Most scared of getting sent back are those who fled to the US from wars, like in Iraq and Syria.
Another teacher said:
“I have tried to reassure my students that no matter the outcome, they will be okay. I don’t even know if that’s true, but I can’t have them worry and stress about it.”
Meanwhile some teenagers, especially boys, see the election as entertainment, as some kind of joke.
Ideas about democracy: One high school teacher summed it up this way:
“They are increasingly political (which is good), but the extreme rhetoric being modeled is not helping their ability to utilize reason and evidence, rather than replying in kind.”
Another high school teacher said:
“I hope they don’t walk away thinking this is what politics is all about.”
– Abagond, 2016.
Source: SPLC.
See also:
520
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.
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Here’s the The Mayo Clinic’s definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: “A mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. Behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that is vulnerable to the slightest criticism.” This is why Donald Trump acts the way he does. He literally cannot help himself. There are no medications for this type of mental illness, and people with NPD are almost never helped by psychotherapy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/trump-and-narcissistic-pe_b_11289332.html
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“Trump running for president has led to more open racism among some schoolchildren and fear and confusion among others. On both sides there has been more anger, shouting and less patience for opposing views. Some fight, some cry.
What, no bedwetters?
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Oh please
What can white people do to black people that they have not done already ?
It’s these other non black groups who are shitting themselves.
You watch they’ll start quoting MLK, they’ll start wanting to form bonds all of sudden with black people.
Black people have always been on front line in fighting white supremacy. This is nothing new. But these Latinos, Asians etc, let them carry their own nuts
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Relax, it’s just Abagond singing for his supper, the man’s got to eat.
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Well of course, it wouldn’t be Amerika if we didn’t have at least one big, bad boogey-man to herd the sheeple, already penned up in a state of fear, skepticism and docility, directly along the trail to certain destruction.
@HipHop said: “But these Latinos, Asians etc, let them carry their own nuts.”
WHAT, … you mean to tell me they have nuts?
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@HipHop said: “But these Latinos, Asians etc, let them carry their own nuts.”
WHAT, … you mean to tell me they have nuts?
Yup! They have walnuts, almonds, cashews, macadamia, pecans and little peanuts. But no Brazil nuts!
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153 years of progress, set back by one man
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“Most scared of getting sent back are those who fled to the US from wars, like in Iraq and Syria.”
This is so sad. These children have been through h*ll and they need to feel safe.
Donald Trump has never suffered, but he causes little children to suffer, children who in their short lives have already been through worse than he will ever see.
I have in-laws who were small children during invasion, war, and enemy occupation. I’ve seen firsthand the damaging effects of the trauma still lingering in their old age. They did nothing, they were innocent little kids, and yet they’ve paid a terrible price.
Someone needs to drop Donald Trump naked in a war zone.
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153 years of progress, or 153 years of obfuscation?
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There is nothing here that surprises me, but ot certainly horrifies me. Drumpf’s nasty vitriolic speech is not just hateful noise pollution, but also brain pollution.
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Do they know that ISIS militants have bombed mosques and killed thousands of Muslims in the middle east? Why won’t the US press report the violence of these madmen towards other Muslims?
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@ Danny
Go back and read it again. These are school-age children and teens. Some of them have fled war-torn Middle Eastern countries because of the very Muslim-on-Muslim violence you’re talking about.
Why should children who lived through terrorist violence be taunted as “terrorists” by other children — and in the land their families fled to as a safe haven, the land of the Lady with the Lamp?
Tell me what makes that right.
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Could someone please explain how on earth would violence perpetrated by Muslims on other Muslims in locations in the Middle East justify or condone violence or even non-violent mistreatment of Muslim children in the USA?
I guess it has nothing to do with logic or common sense.
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@ jefe
It is called out-group homogeneity. Because of 9/11, ISIS, etc, all
Muslims get painted with the same brush instead of being seen as individuals.
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^ yes, I know, it was kinda a rhetorical question.
But using the same argument, white terrorism of blacks in the USA (where both are presumably Christian) would justify, say, the capture and sequestering of Christian Korean American or Catholic Native American visitors/residents to the Red Sea or Gulf of Oman because they need to be punished for what their fellow Christians back in their home country are doing.
I know it is hopeless. I can’t talk to my own brother about it either.
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@ gro jo
Nothing about bed-wetting in the report.
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@Solitaire You must have misunderstood my point. I wasn’t suggesting Muslims should go through anti-Muslim bias. I was calling out the misguided narrative MSM puts out here above Muslims as if they are all the same. You seldomly hear about the barbaric acts of Isis perpetrated against Muslims in Africa and the Middle East on Cnn, Fox, Abc and Nbc. The only time where you see such barbarism from Isis is when it’s perpetuated against non Muslims or Europeans.
If the media were to show the masses that Muslims are just as much as much victims of terrorism as non Muslims are, from the bombing of mosques to the beheadings of Muslim men women, It would show the Donald Trumps of the world just how stupid they sound when they call for profiling Muslims. The media never talks about the suffering of Muslims in these controlled areas under Isis rule. I thought nk there is a reason they don’t talk about it.
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@ Danny
You’re right, I misunderstood you. When you asked “do they know,” I thought “they” referred to the Muslim children in the article or perhaps the schoolteachers who were describing the climate in their schools. I see now that by “they,” you meant the Americans who believe the refugees and the terrorists are one in the same.
My apologies. You make a valid point.
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“@ gro jo
Nothing about bed-wetting in the report.”
What makes these kids special? Is it because they are in the USA and presumably, nothing bad should happen to them here? Trump is a swine but he had zero to do with the plight of the kids in this report. Obama and Clinton started the war in Syria. Obama deported more people than his predecessors. I find it cynical of you to try to scare people into voting for Clinton by attributing the real crimes she committed to a possible Trump administration. This report says a lot more about the loss of access anxiety to power of its authors than the real fears of children.
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They aren’t chanting “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!”
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“They aren’t chanting “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!””
Props are usually silent!
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Why are you scared? Was your name on it? Hopefully the kid doesn’t see you as a ni__er!
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LoM
I’m not trying to detract from the seriousness of what you have shared but this incident is not isolated. Growing up in schools in the UK on the 70s and 80s this type of attitude was far more prevalent, aggressive and said with intent. Teachers were no deterrent.
Your ‘shock’ really is a strong indication that you are not as ‘in step’ in terms of experiencing racism with poc as you constantly assert. Whilst people would be sad, dismayed, resigned, pissed off at yet another racist outburst I imagine unfortunately that shock would not be the case at all
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@ Ominpresent
I think he’s shocked that this incident happened so close to him, up North in a blue ultra-liberal bastion instead of down South or out West, and that the culprit was “a bright and intelligent young man” instead of a mouth-breathing hayseed redneck.
I’ve been telling him all along there are hard-core racists right next to him if only he’d take off his blinders and use his eyes.
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“This has left me sick, shocked, and scared.”
.
Careful… your supposedly I’M NOT-white, WHITE irish PRIVILEGE is showing!
Black people do not have the luxury or time to be sick, shocked and scared when racist WHITE folks jump out of the woodwork with reckless and regular abandon. We have to do what we’ve always done. That’s GET ON with living amidst the thousands of paper-cuts deaths that’s all too familiar.
You should be an excellent candidate for sharing Joshua Solomon’s real life experience. Perhaps you might learn not to post pictures of Black people as chimpanzees on a site that’s heavily populated by Black people! Then again, knowing how impossibly dense your head is, it would most likely be an exercise in futility wasted upon someone with your overwhelming level of cluelessness.
@ Allen Shaw
You should learn about Dr Joyce DeGruy’s internet contributions on how slavery contributes to the present day malaise of Black people. After you watched Hidden Colors 3, of course.
It’s time for you to stop being a dummy!
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Solitaire
I can’t call it, but you answer on behalf of LoM a lot! I’m intrigued, why is that? Often you reject or get annoyed with his interaction with other commenters yet still you take up for him.
In the nicest way possible I don’t always think it is helpful to him to have you re interpret what he is saying. He is very articulate and able to speak for himself. I would rather hear what he says rather than you filtering him.
That said I think you do have a very good understanding of where he is coming from so you are probably correct 🙂
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@ Omnipresent
I didn’t think that comment was in any way an attempt to take up for LoM. It was meant as a criticism of his blind spots, certainly not as a defense of them. Perhaps I should have directed it to him instead of wording it as building on your comment.
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@Fan …
what’s your take on the kuru theory of Hillary’s illness and the latest Clinton related death in Haiti?
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Solitaire
It seems I have offended you, that was not my intention. I still do believe that by offering an opinion before LoM has a chance to respond is not helpful. Just my take
I do like your commentary and hope this won’t deter you from engaging with me in future
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@ Omnipresent
No offense taken at all. I was just offering an explanation and intended to sound matter-of-fact, not offended or defensive. Unfortunately, tone does not always come across well on the internet.
I do appreciate your feedback and will take it under consideration.
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@ Nomad
“what’s your take on the kuru theory of Hillary’s illness and the latest Clinton related death in Haiti?”
Regarding the latest Clinton related death of a female who was asking questions and investigating the role the Clintons (and their Foundation’s) recent activities in Haiti – if this is the latest related death you’re referring to – I heard of it some weeks ago soon after that investigator’s sudden demise. I’m not a believer in amazing coincidences where/when people that are somehow related to Clinton malfeasance apparently often turn up dead by suicide or an “accident” i.e. Ron Brown and/or Vince Foster among many others.
I just looked up the kuru theory … and at this point I’ll say this, truth is stranger than fiction… and anything is possible where these folks are concerned. Unless of course your name is amongst Abagond’s merry band of loyal unquestioning followers, plus Allen Shaw or William the Conqueror, two utterly stout believers in the wholesome wonderfulness of the saintly Clinton’s indelible mark of goodness and morality upon humanity.
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@ nomad
Huh?
How is this even remotely on topic? How is this not a deflection from Trump? How is this “don’t want to hear me bash this witch, don’t bring her up. we can move on” as you said here:
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yeah well obama is not going to pull a feather out of his lame duck azz and pass immigration reform… in december? please. trump will just issue an executive order, trumps are soon to be broken, like.
and the new poster they have in the ‘workplace regulation posting’ area clearly states ‘most jobs do not require you to prove US citizenship’… I suppose that will change soon. I can’t find the pdf of it now…
and trump is probably not likely to actually do something about … let’s say heroin importation (ie opium production in afghanistan), or with FARC getting the Nobel peace prize or whatever, the cocaine fields in South America… or anything, he is completely silent on drugs at first glance from his web site, but he is all riled up about the ‘undocumented non-resident alien’? population? in the US, I don’t use ‘America’ at all excepting maybe as an adjective, ie american as in cheese
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kuru? is that some spy crap that belongs in the conspiracy thread? is that like a pen that is a blowdart with a ricin tipped dart or what
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@abagond
sorry I know its off topic but I hailed fan on an appropriate topic to no avail and I assume he didn’t see my queries. so I wanted to make sure I spoke to him by responding to his latest comment. enquiring minds and all that jazz.
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v8
look it up
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OFF TOPIC: Hillary Clinton
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@ nomad
““what’s your take on the kuru theory of Hillary’s illness and the latest Clinton related death in Haiti?”
Huh?
How is this even remotely on topic? How is this not a deflection from Trump? How is this “don’t want to hear me bash this witch, don’t bring her up. we can move on” as you said here:”
technically this is not bashing and no one brought her up. but if they do, I might bash.
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*whee*
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@fan
this thread
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my bad
as you were
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