Without question, this country is in unchartered territory. People across the country continue to express themselves in despair. Others in fear. Some panic, while still others prepare. Of course, many have staged numerous protests from coast to coast.
At the same time, professors from coast to coast are also speaking out, including via the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who have denounced the racial incidents and hate crimes which are happening not just at colleges and universities, but also at K-12 schools. They have also come out in support of the idea of sanctuary campuses for undocumented students.
While a colleague, Angela Valenzuela at the University of Texas at Austin, speaks of watching a documentary on the rise of Hitler and its striking similarities with today’s political situation, hundreds of Jewish scholars of Holocaust history call on Americans to mobilize in global solidarity against the president-elect.
This also includes a call by some 200 national human rights organizations that are calling upon President Obama to dismantle whatever is left of the National Security exit-entry registration system (NSEERS), which during the President George W. Bush Administration, was used to track Arabs and Muslims in this country, yet resulted in zero terrorism convictions. The denunciation of this program has also come from the Council on Arab Islamic Relations (CAIR). The architect of NSEERS, Kris Kobach, appears to also be on track to have a prominent role in the president-elect’s cabinet. He purportedly is proposing something similar, though not limited to Arabs or Muslims, thus prompting that joint call. Kobach, not coincidentally, was the architect of Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 legislation, a state measure that was copied by many states across the country.
This is but two weeks after the elections and yet all the signs are ominous, beginning with the selection of Steve Bannon, a racial extremist who previously led Breitbart News, as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president-elect. As he continues to choose the rest of his cabinet, all the signs point towards extreme right-wing consolidation, including the likes of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and ex-Arizona governor, Jan Brewer.
All this has been taking place while the inhumane, brutal and unprecedented assaults against the water protectors at Standing Rock continue to shock the world’s conscience. Despite the president ordering the halting of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which is slated to traverse through four states, he has done little in the past several months to both stop its building, nor has he stopped the violence against the water protectors. And prospects do not look good regarding this issue, as the president-elect is a strong supporter of oil drilling and energy deregulation.
