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Presidential
race
shows
deep
seated
contention
toward
minorities
By JESSE
J.
HOLLAND
Associated
Press
WASHINGTON
- It
started
with
Mexicans
being
publicly
accused
by
presidential
candidate
Donald
Trump of
being
criminals
and
rapists.
It
escalated
to
ejections,
to
sucker
punches,
to
pepper
spray.
And now
violence
and
strife
seems to
be a
commonplace
occurrence
out on
the
campaign
trail.
As the
2016
presidential
campaign
turns
toward
the
rapidly
diversifying
West, it
has
officially
buried
any
thoughts
of a
post-racial
United
States,
with
racial
and
ethnic
groups
at the
center
of the
most
public
strife
seen in
the
political
arena
since
the
height
of the
civil
rights
movement.
Much of
the
violence
has
revolved
around
the
ascendancy
of GOP
presidential
candidate
Donald
Trump,
first
toward
minorities
and now
by
minorities
protesting
his
policies.
On
Tuesday,
protesters
in New
Mexico
opposing
Trump
threw
burning
T-shirts,
plastic
bottles
and
other
items at
police
officers,
injuring
several,
and
toppled
trash
cans and
barricades.
Police
responded
by
firing
pepper
spray
and
smoke
grenades
into the
crowd
outside
the
Albuquerque
Convention
Center.
Karla
Molinar,
21, a
University
of New
Mexico
student,
participated
in a
planned
disruption
of
Trump's
speech
and said
she had
no
choice
because
Trump is
sparking
hatred
of
Mexican
immigrants.
Trump,
among
other
things,
has
called
for a
ban on
Muslims
entering
the
United
States
and
declared
that he
will
build a
wall
along
the
U.S.-Mexico
border.
"Trump
is
causing
the hate
to get
worse,"
she
said.
Earlier
this
year,
demonstrators
against
Trump
swarmed
outside
the
hotel
near San
Francisco
airport,
forcing
the
candidate
Trump to
crawl
under a
fence to
enter
the
hotel
where he
met with
local
GOP
power
brokers.
Other
protesters
tangled
with
authorities
and
damaged
police
cars
after a
Trump
rally in
Orange
County,
California.
Earlier,
the
violence
was
aimed
toward
minorities.
For
example:
- A
black
woman
was
surrounded,
cursed
and
shoved
by white
onlookers
at a
Trump
rally in
Louisville,
Kentucky
in
March.
- Latino
demonstrators
Ariel
Rojas
was
kicked
and
dragged
by a
white
Trump
supporter
at a
rally in
Miami in
October.
- A
black
male
protester,
Rakeem
Jones,
was
punched
from
behind
by white
Trump
supporter
John
McGraw
as Jones
was
being
ejected
from a
rally by
police
in North
Carolina.
McGraw
was
later
arrested.
- Video
captured
Trump
supporters
physically
assaulting
Mercutio
Southall
Jr., an
African-American
activist,
at a
rally in
Birmingham,
Alabama
in
November.
Southall
said
afterward
he was
called
several
expletives
by the
crowd
and
later
compared
them to
a "lynch
mob."
While
political
violence
is not
unknown,
like the
1968
violence
at the
Democratic
National
Convention
in
Chicago
where
119
police
and 100
protesters
were
injured,
rarely
has it
been
targeted
so
specifically
at
minorities,
said
Matt
Dallak,
a
professor
of
political
management
in the
Graduate
School
of
Political
Management
at
George
Washington
University.
He also
laid
much of
the
responsibility
on
Trump,
who
started
his
political
campaign
by
comparing
undocumented
immigrants
from
Mexico
to
criminals
and
rapists.
The
crowds
at
Trump's
rallies
are
feeding
off him
"demonizing
particular
segments
of the
population,
including
racial
minorities"
he said.
"When
you are
whipping
people
up, it
contributes
to an
atmosphere
that
leads to
the
potential
of
political
violence.
Words
matter,"
he said.
Trump
says he
does not
encourage
violence;
the
fault,
he says,
lies
with the
demonstrators.
But the
political
rhetoric
is
feeding
into
misplaced
myths
about
the
contributions
of
minorities
to this
society,
said Sol
Trujillo,
founder
and
chair of
the
Latino
Donor
Collaborative.
"We're a
country
of
breaking
barriers,
not
erecting
barriers,"
he said.
Ken
Burns,
an
Academy
Award-winning
documentary
filmmaker,
said
some of
Trump's
comments
and
actions
- like
forgetting
that he
had
repudiated
a Ku
Klux
Klan
leader -
"that is
the
wink-wink
dog
whistle
that
signals
to our
unreconstructed
brothers."
"We'd
like to
believe
in our
better
selves
but in
point of
fact, a
lot of
us
aren't
that,"
said
Burns,
who
explored
racial
tensions
in his
documentary,
"Jackie
Robinson."
No one
has died
yet this
campaign
season.
However,
violence
-
including
some
that has
been
fatal -
has
often
been
suffered
by
minorities
participating
in
political
processes
and
social
protesting.
For
example,
an
estimated
150
blacks
and
three
whites
were
killed
after
white
Louisianans
attempted
to take
over a
courthouse
in
Colfax,
Louisiana
on
Easter
Sunday
after
losing a
statewide
election
to
reconstructionists
in 1872,
which
became
known as
the
Colfax
Massacre.
And Rev.
George
Lee was
gunned
down in
Belzoni,
Mississippi
in May
7, 1954
for his
attempts
to get
blacks
to vote.
In
August
1955,
World
War II
veteran
Lamar
Smith
was shot
on the
courthouse
lawn in
Brookhaven,
Mississippi,
for
urging
blacks
to vote.
Lee had
turned
down
police
protection
because
it was
offered
only on
the
condition
he
stopped
his
voter
registration
efforts.
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