Racism pervades politics despite hailed ‘progressive America’

Recent national events — particularly the disconcerting reality of Donald Trump’s racially charged presidency campaign — have spurred the race conversation anew. They raise the question of the current state of race relations in America: How progressive, really, is the 21st century United States?

In the political domain, Trump and Dr. Ben Carson rank as the top two Republican candidates, according to a Sept. 30 NBC poll. The polling numbers reveal that Trump has 21 percent of Republican voters, and Carson trails him at 20 percent.

Evidently, neither candidate is a minor player in this presidential race. It’s important, now, to examine their stances on race relations.

Trump, notorious for his inexcusably racist rhetoric, unapologetically calls for the deportation of all illegal Mexican immigrants. He claims that these immigrants are all “rapists, bringing crime and drugs” and continues to say that he “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body” — and, miraculously enough, millions of people take his word for it.

Furthermore, Carson stated during an NBC interview on Sept. 20 that he believes the president’s faith matters and “absolutely would not agree with a Muslim in charge of this nation.” There seems to be a pathetic pattern among conservatives to muddle the concept of separation of church and state, as if it’s a particularly perplexing Constitutional clause.

Do Americans truly understand how ridiculously appalling the success of these candidates is? These are the leading GOP statesmen in the 21st century, and among the millions who have rallied to their names, not one eye blinks when they unabashedly attack ethnic and religious minorities as if it’s totally acceptable, morally permissible behavior.

Frankly, I’m more than a bit alarmed.

It’s easy to dismiss Trump as a buffoon that nobody actually takes seriously — but reading into his numbers of support, this demagogue has clearly raised a considerable cult of ignorant right-wing fanatics who endorse his shamelessly racist state policy.

In fact, white supremacist organizations like the neo-Nazi news site, The Daily Stormer, have publicly declared their support for Trump. Michael Hill, leader of Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group, the League of the South, “loves to see somebody like Trump come along” and fights against the “cultural genocide of white Americans,” according to the Huffington Post.

There is no doubt that Trump appeals to a racist vein in America. And it’s become apparent that this vein flows in the blood of millions of Americans.

And Carson is hardly any better — besides his willful disregard for the fact that the American government is a secular body, he essentially encourages Islamophobia in America. It’s an issue of deliberate discrimination that should be addressed by the potential leaders of this country, certainly not promoted.

A Sept. 29 New York Times article revealed that, of several hundred Republican voters polled in North Carolina, 72 percent would object to a Muslim president and 40 percent think Islam should be illegal.

And the questions I’m dying to ask are numerous — whatever happened to education, the teaching of history and upholding of moral values? If there have ever been ugly signs of a country in rapid deterioration, 21st century America seems to display an unhealthily large number of them.