{"id":215054,"date":"2016-11-15T12:26:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T19:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=215054"},"modified":"2016-11-21T09:53:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T16:53:44","slug":"my-commitment-in-donald-trumps-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/11\/my-commitment-in-donald-trumps-america\/","title":{"rendered":"My commitment in Donald Trump\u2019s America"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong>\u00a0In eighth grade, three of my teammates watched me discover that my locker had been broken into and my basketball shoes stolen. They laughed.<\/p>\n

Coach walked by, asked why I wasn\u2019t ready for practice. I shared what happened. He walked away.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFucking gringo,\u201d one of my teammates said to me. I felt scared and powerless.<\/p>\n

The violence, racism and intimidation we\u2019ve seen since Donald Trump was elected president last week, especially the kids in a middle school chanting \u201cbuild the wall\u201d<\/a> at lunch, brought me back to that moment from my youth at St. Michael\u2019s High School in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

There were brown kids in that lunch room last week, surrounded by peers who essentially taunted and threatened them.<\/p>\n

I cried.<\/p>\n

Two thousand sixteen certainly isn\u2019t the first time a political candidate fanned the flames of economic tension and racial anxiety to win an election. I\u2019ve lived through a time like this. The Santa Fe of my youth was a top tourist destination and a popular place for the wealthy to build second homes on hilltops. They drove up prices and property taxes and forced many Hispanic people out of homes<\/a> their families had owned for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n

Enter Debbie Jaramillo, a combative city councilor who ran for mayor in 1994 on a pledge to take the city back from \u201coutsiders\u201d \u2013 code for white and wealthy. Like Trump this year, Jaramillo was outspent and trailing in polls. Like Trump, she pulled off a stunning upset.<\/p>\n

Jaramillo taped into hurting people\u2019s fears and gave them someone to blame \u2013 white folks \u2013like Trump this year has pointed people\u2019s fears at immigrants, Muslims and others.<\/p>\n

Jaramillo\u2019s demonizing of others proved to be dangerous and damaging<\/a>. Teens can be especially cruel, and I felt the brunt of that. While some intend \u201cgringo\u201d to be a friendly label, I experienced it as a degrading racial slur back then.<\/p>\n

To this day, I have to breathe out my fight-or-flight response when I hear that word.<\/p>\n

I remember parents of a team we beat in basketball lining the sidewalk to stare us down and mutter awful things as we left their gym. I remember our mayor threatening that people might burn down the houses of outsiders \u201cor put a gun to their head\u201d if they came to Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two years after Jaramillo was elected in Santa Fe, we have a nationwide revolt, largely by rural, white Americans. The 2008 recession, NAFTA and Obamacare are among the sources of their pain. Their communities are struggling with opioid addiction and high suicide rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So they voted. They broke everything that said Hillary Clinton would win \u2013 the polls, the campaign finance system, journalism.<\/p>\n

Many people are frightened. I\u2019m concerned for people who Trump and some supporters have threatened.<\/p>\n

I also know from experience that political revolution brings change. Santa Fe still struggles, but it\u2019s a more inclusive, thoughtful city today. When broken systems refuse to change, change still comes, but it\u2019s more combative.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t like living in Santa Fe in the 1990s, and I\u2019m uncertain now. I\u2019m processing how to move forward as a human being and a journalist. I know I must keep telling stories and facilitating discussions that help us understand each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also a big fan of civil rights. Some of Trump\u2019s proposals are dark and unconstitutional. I\u2019ll be watching closely.<\/p>\n

Violence is unacceptable. I\u2019ll call it out when I see it.<\/p>\n

We must remain open to hearing each other and vigilant about protecting those who need help. That\u2019s my commitment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been here before. We must remain open to hearing each other and vigilant about protecting those who need help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[708,140,3307,226,143,177,179],"class_list":["post-215054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2016-election","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-donald-trump","tag-presidential-race","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-religion","tag-santa-fe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}