“I’ve heard race more than anything throughout this whole election, throughout this whole year,” Mr. Ponce Landaverde says. “This whole year is just race. I feel like there needs to be more unity in this country.” He continues:

[Race] doesn’t need to be talked about. This election wasn’t about that. He’s not kicking African-Americans out of this country. My dad, he’s Hispanic, he came from Mexico, you know. He came illegally, now he is legal. He went to school and everything, learned the language and all that after work, just so he could become legal. He’s worked harder than anybody I know. And I asked him if I was upsetting him for who I was wanting to vote for. I had to explain to him multiple times that when [Donald Trump] was talking about illegals and all that, it wasn’t every illegal, it was people that came over illegally doing bad, was more what he was focused about, but he didn’t say it that way. If he would know how to talk, he would have done better and had more people supporting him.

Mr. Hill explained to his friend why, to him, race was a crucial factor in this election, and is a big part of why he is struggling to understand friends who voted for Mr. Trump. “A lot of what he has said, it’s disparaging for marginalized people in this country — African-Americans, Latinos, gay people, women — it’s disparaging,” Mr. Hill says. “To a certain extent, voting for Donald Trump after all he said, after all he’s done — you have to be somewhat comfortable with that in order to cast that vote for that man.” He continues:

When I look at people who voted for Donald Trump and I know they know me, that kind of hurt me, man. You had to be cool with some of the stuff that he was saying, or it didn’t bother you. To me I felt like if you knew me, or knew people who were African-American or people who were Latino or people who were gay, people who were Muslim, who worship Muslim faith, that should have rocked you to your core as far as the things he said, and that should have been unacceptable. A large portion of this country didn’t feel that way. In my opinion, I have to look at those people a different way because there’s a question, as an African-American man, would they have my back in a Donald Trump world? Like I said, I don’t think you’re a racist, Aaron. I don’t. I could never believe you’re a racist, man, that’s silly, that’s stupid. Can’t believe you’re sexist. Cannot. But part of me is puzzled.

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