Trump's win threatens existence and comfort of non-Caucasians
America's president-elect Donald Trump on election night at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel in New York City on November 9, 2016. PHOTO | JIM WATSON | AFP
What you need to know:
Anyone who has been to the US and interacted with Kenyans who live and work there obviously knows better.
The whole thing of winning a “green card” – which makes a lot of Kenyans so excited – has over time blinded a lot of our people.
Many of us got the impression that the card would give them a life that is way better than in Kenya.
The reality is that many of them toil on jobs that Americans themselves do not want to do.
There will obviously be the odd Kenyan – African – who just gets on and excels in what he or she does.
Those are acceptable and they do tend to run things right but I am sure they are in the minority.
For a lot of us Kenyans, it seems that being associated with America is a truly big deal. If you doubt what I say, just look at the obituaries in the newspapers every other day. If it is a mother, one will see “she is the mother of so-and-so (USA)". If it is a father or a brother or a sister, the story is the same. No one ever cares to tell us what those fellows are doing in the USA.
Anyone who has been to the US and interacted with Kenyans who live and work there obviously knows better. The whole thing of winning a “green card” – which makes a lot of Kenyans so excited – has over time blinded a lot of our people. Many of us got the impression that the card would give them a life that is way better than in Kenya. The reality is that many of them toil on jobs that Americans themselves do not want to do.
There will obviously be the odd Kenyan – African – who just gets on and excels in what he or she does. Those are acceptable and they do tend to run things right but I am sure they are in the minority.
The real issue that is at the top of my mind right now is that with the election of Donald Trump into American leadership, there is a big threat to the existence and comfort of people who are not Caucasian. It doesn’t matter where they come from.
SOMEWHERE ELSE
Yet, of course, we have all known that all Caucasian Americans have an origin somewhere else other than where they are now.
The new reality in America is that Trump was able to explicitly pronounce and shout out what the rest of the white Americans had never been able to say.
Even the best of them – JFK – had a little problem dealing with Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” address in Washington DC, in spite of all the hype about Democrats being the guardians of free America.
The reason Trump won the hearts of so many Americans is that he articulated their racist tendencies which they have always been shy to discuss loudly.
If there is a Kenyan living in America who has ever experienced racism and discrimination, he/she should know that from now on, they are going to experience it more explicitly if Trump’s statements during the campaigns are anything to go by.
Is the civilised world making progress or has it made a retrogressive about-turn?
Fr Dominic Wamugunda is dean of students, University of Nairobi.
