Aubrey Perry’s parents might live in blue-state California, but she was raised in the blue-collar town of Turlock along with a lot of immigrant labor. Her father ran his own pest extermination business and her mother taught ESL (English as a Second Language) and basic English at a local college. Putting a face on the struggle for immigrant families didn’t stop derogatory names like “greaseball,” “wetback,” “spic” or “beaner” from being used Perry’s house, however. “That’s what we called Mexicans,” she wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, not only are her parents Trump supporters, her mother is a delegate for Trump in California. The Melbourne-based artist and writer found her mother’s name when she was scanning through the list looking for white supremacist William Johnson. The Trump campaign claims to have accidently tapped him due to a “database error.” Perry saw her mother’s name listed alongside the white supremacist as well as an islamophobic pastor and was horrified.
The sad thing about prejudice and bigotry is that it’s learned behavior. No one leaps from the womb hating or advocating for discriminating against those they define as “less than.” A person learns that sort of thing from the people around them, particularly parents and other adults in their lives.
Fortunately, it’s possible- and not terribly difficult- to break the cycle, to decide that even though those around you are steeped in hatred and exclusion, you can choose a different path. In the case of Aubrey Perry, she should be commended for deciding to rise above the hatred and bigotry she was exposed to during her childhood. It’s difficult to imagine the shock and dismay she must have felt upon discovering the true nature and depth of her parents’ hatred and disdain for those they’ve branded as “less than.” Even sadder and more depressing is that Perry felt that her parents’ racism, hatred, and bigotry were so vile and odious that she had no option but to excise them from her life.
When one’s hatred of The Other is stronger than your love of family, you can’t claim to be surprised when those you love choose to travel in a different direction…one that doesn’t include you.
Perry says that she never uses Twitter, but was disturbed by what she found when she visited her mother’s account. “Hateful memes, ugly language, and appearance-based attacks, targeted at Hillary Clinton, stacked up,” Perry wrote. “And not just hateful, but off-topic and malicious calling Hillary ‘ugly,’ ‘old’ and ‘screechy.’ An ‘unlikeable old bag. The ‘woman card’ stinks!’ my mother wrote. My mother! A college instructor! She should know better. She’s no internet troll. Is she?”….
Perry was shocked and told her mother publicly. “Your Twitter feed makes me disappointed and embarrassed of you as a person, a supposed critical thinker, and my mother. Shocked,” she writes.
I don’t know how one could possibly hope to reconcile love for a parent with the realization that said parent is the proud owner of a soul steeped in racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia, and other forms of virulent hatred. How could one hope to have a loving relationship with someone so thoroughly committed to hating and belittling those whom they fear simply for their perceived differences?
It wasn’t long before Perry discovered video clips of her mother on Fox News being interviewed at a Trump rally in Burlingame, California in April. “I’m all Trump, only Trump, always Trump, forever Trump,” her mother told the cameras. Perry says those words replay over and over in her mind.
“I was overwhelmed with shame for my years of silence for not opposing her ideologies sooner,” Perry writes. “Look where it got me. Look where it got my family. Look where it got us as a nation, a country of closet racists and enablers.”
It’s an admirable enough thing to stand up to haters; I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to be confronted with the reality that your own flesh and blood, people you’ve loved and respected, are unabashedly bigoted, proud of that fact, and unconcerned about who knows it.
One could argue- convincingly- that the rise of Donald Trump has made racism, homophobia, and hatred of those who are different acceptable, even fashionable in certain circles. This ugliness isn’t new; it’s always been part and parcel of America. Even though Trump has legitimized and energized those who expend considerable energy on hatred and exclusion, this is not a phenomenon he introduced; merely one he’s enabled and promoted as his most viable path to power. Haters feel empowered to be open, even proud of their hatred and bigotry- MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN is merely code for MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN!
Jimi Hendrix once said that we could never know peace until the power of love overcomes the love of power. Given the tone and tenor of our current public discourse, I’m not certain those words have ever been more true and spot-on than they are today.
Those who love Donald Trump can’t claim it’s because of policy proposals, of which there are damned few. No, it’s primarily because his campaign has created an atmosphere in where those steeped in hatred and bigotry feel enabled and empowered. It allows them to stand up and proudly proclaim their calumny and disdain for those they fear for the ways in which they’re “different.” If offers Trump a very real shot at winning the Presidency through the power of the Big Lie and by assiduously pursuing a policy of “divide and conquer.”
MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN…not that we’ve ever really stopped.
