By Nikita Mehta:
The US Election has been the most talked subject in the media and the whole world was waiting for its results. The results came as a shocker to all and media around the world expressed the same.
We all lived and grew up in a delusion that the ‘first world’ is progressive and modern. The idea of modernity had been drawn from the West and the so-called ‘first world’. If not anything else, this election result has come out as an eye opener to all who believed in this. After all those controversies around the Republican nominee Donald Trump, still, the electoral college chose him to be their leader instead of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
A person who turned out to be misogynist, sexist and racist in nature, who not only preaches hate but also practices it, is it what they call the ‘white men syndrome’? Or were they just waiting for a leader who can address their notions?
It is tough to believe that this is the same country which selected Barack Obama as their Commander-in-chief eight years ago, a birth of a revolution we all believed. A country who actually rose above the conflict of race and created history back then has failed to accept a woman as their President.
The same land which supported the first wave of feminism back in the 19th century. Prominent feminist leaders like Lucretia Coffin Mott, Elizabeth Cody Standon, Lucy Stone and many more, all hailed from this land. The land remained barren to a lady Commander-in-chief once again.
The post-election surveys and numbers show that even after all the outrage and media reports about Trump, even white women chose him over Hillary. The reason why I am pointing this out is that the notion of the selection of Trump over Hillary is questionable, is that the idea of my land and my people which eventually leads to racism, which made them avoid his regressive behavior towards women.
In recent news, we all saw the state of racism in the US through the Dallas police killings and cases similar to this. A country which had an African-American President for eight years can’t get over the notion of racism, how is that country planning to achieve equality of genders by electing Donald Trump?
A friend of mine who moved to the US back in 2013 because of his sexual orientation and its unacceptability in Indian society, felt solace there as for the first time, he was able to be what he always wanted to be, without pretending. He is scared again. Too many lives are about to change or should I say about to get worse, immigrants, LGBTQ, African-Americans etc.
We can say that the old America has won and now the new America is scared. The battles in India are different but the ideas are strangely similar. Trump’s victory can be a suffering for Americans but it is for sure the lesson to the rest. If a country with 87% internet literacy has fallen for this, this explains how cautious we need to be while casting that one vote of ours.