Dear President-Elect Trump

Local entrepreneur and country title high schoolhouse basketball motorcoach Seth Berger urges the Donald to bridge the nation's racial divide—as only he can

Nov. fourteen, 2016

Dear President-Elect Trump,

This by spring, I left my sleeping wife in a Borgata hotel room early on i Sat morning to get downstairs to jump into a poker game. I was i of nine white men at the table. About an hour in, I turned to the television by the table and watched every bit the news channel simultaneously broadcast one of your campaign rallies, also every bit a news story of a white policeman killing an unarmed black man. The audio on the televisions was muted; instead of listening to the social commentary around the story, Chet Bakery'southward trumpet filtered through my ear buds.

The men at the table started to speak their minds, u.s.a. white guys all alone. "How come they're not upset nigh the black-on-black shootings in Chicago?" To which my immediate idea was: "Because we know that criminals impale people without good reason, but cops aren't supposed to." I tried remaining focused on the game, knowing that no one'south listen at the tabular array was up for changing.

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"Those people need to be put in their place," another one said. A third chimed in, "They're like animals. Trump will accept care of them." They were so comfortable speaking like this, with no person of color inside earshot. Just a group of white guys at a Sabbatum morning poker game; lawyers, business people, and a couple of pros.

As I seethed inside, my wife texted me that she was walking into the poker room to go into a game. I told her to come over to my tabular array in the back to say good morn. We had a secret to share.

"Hey honey," my smiling wife said as she tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to become up and buss the tall, beautiful black woman who has been my wife for 20 years.

The irony, Mr. Trump, is that your ballot represents the all-time risk our nation has ever had to come together across racial and ethnic lines. Only someone openly supported by the KKK, David Duke, and other white supremacists can condemn and defeat bigotry and intolerance.

The table went dead silent. She went to her game in another role of the room as I saturday back down to mine. No i said a word or made middle contact, with me or each other. One guy waited a couple hands before rushing off to lunch—at xi am. Ii other guys put their headphones on. 1 guy put on sunglasses. Their bigotry had been outed.

I smiled as I made a pocket-sized profit during the session while, 1 by one, these guys all started to explicate what they "really meant": That they all had black friends and were all for racial equality, that what was happening to unarmed blackness men was both unfair and unjust.

The irony, Mr. Trump, is that your ballot represents the best chance our nation has ever had to come together across racial and ethnic lines. Someone from the left could never have attacked bigotry, because their phonation would not have resonated every bit loudly with the people who never supported them in the first place. You solitary are the best fit for the job, for this job, in 2016. Only someone openly supported by the KKK, David Duke, and other white supremacists can condemn and defeat bigotry and intolerance.

Mr. Trump, you lot and I share some things in common. I'm a born and bred New Yorker; I too attended the Wharton School of Business; and I also accept had business organization successes and failures, albeit on a much, much smaller scale than you. We are both highly competitive, and our undying conventionalities in ourselves has probably helped each of us out-kick our coverage.

I did non vote for yous, but I placed a small wager on you lot to win months ago. I knew that your understanding of branding and marketing, and your indefatigable drive, would bring you shut to the White House. And I knew that the angry white men who hated watching for eight years every bit a black man took charge of our nation would seal the deal.

Police force care for people of color differently than white folks. Delight just admit it. The adjacent time a policeman kills an unarmed black male person, sit at the forepart during the funeral, with the family. Blueish lives matter, white lives thing, and black lives matter.

Today is a new twenty-four hour period, and I am rooting for y'all to be the all-time President we take ever had. I want you to modify our nation and our country. I want to vote for you in 4 years and want you lot to overwhelmingly win the pop vote, carrying majorities beyond racial lines like none earlier you. But your entrada slogans instill both fear and promise in what y'all may bring for our nation.

"Take Our State Dorsum" scares me. I don't desire to go back. I want to move forward.

"Brand America Great Once again" stirs me. I believe in our people and our potential, and I agree that our progress has been paused.

"Make America One," finally, inspires me. We tin can only defeat our enemies at habitation and abroad if we are a nation united.

Having listened to yous say, "I am the least racist person you accept ever met," I know yous believe this. Truthfully, I am not the to the lowest degree racist person I accept ever met. I wonder who is. But every bit I enter the 21st year of being married to a black woman, with three bi-racial kids, I am in a meliorate position to understand how both sides remember. So, please, read with an open up heed. You don't know what it is like to exist a parent of a child of colour in these United states.

If you really desire to unify our nation, here is what you need to know:

1) Everyone who is not white and directly is this state is more afraid for their condom and the rubber of our children than we were on November 7th. Blackness, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Muslim, gay, trans—they are all afraid that you volition permit their communities to exist terrorized by white terrorists who will utilise your name and our state'southward flag to bully, harm, and—yes—kill our children.

Yous don't take whatsoever time to decide which side y'all will take. Merely days subsequently your election, the hidden anger that white hate groups feel is already showing its ugly face across America, as are protests by people of all races who fearfulness what your presidency will bring.

You lot will either quickly utilize all ways of police enforcement to ensure the safety of every American of every color, or you lot volition utilize police enforcement to guarantee that nosotros will be going back to the days when white people acted like terrorists without fearfulness of legal punishment. You lot must know of the racially-based rhetoric that is being spewed in your name, and you owe it to Americans of every color and stripe to condemn and human action against these heinous crimes existence committed by some of your supporters.

ii) Every solar day our kids exit the house, nosotros are more afraid that they volition be stopped by a cop than we are hopeful that they will be helped by a cop.

Recently, my oldest son got his drivers license. I am worried that when he gets his first violation, an officer volition break his tail lite, plant drugs in the trunk, and shoot him expressionless while he has his hands on the wheel. Really. No kidding.

My family unit lives in the suburbs, on the western Main Line of Philadelphia. The viii homes on our cul-de-sac are all valued in the millions. No ane here walks downward the street and gets shot, and our kids nourish individual schools.

Over a recent 5-year catamenia, I was stopped 10 times for assorted violations by local police—emissions, registration, speeding (one time going 85 in a 45 mph zone). Ix of those times the law asked me to wearisome down, get the inspection or registration done and then politely sent me on my way with a alarm. "Accept a nice day, Mr. Berger." "Delight boring downwards, Mr. Berger."

If you truly want to get a sense for what it's similar to be a minority and be a President for all Americans, spend one dinner every calendar week as the merely white person in a room full of people of color, fifty-fifty in The White Firm. Get comfy. Your children and grandchildren volition be in the minority by 2044.

In the same period, my wife and mother in law were besides stopped ten times for similar violations, although they both drive more slowly than I practice. They were given nine tickets in 10 stops. Only one time did they become off with a warning. My father-in-law was a 25-year Air Force veteran. I'm certain that my wife was respectful of the officers that stopped her, as she is of every homo or adult female that serves this country.

Police force care for people of color differently than white folks. Delight just acknowledge it. The next time a policeman kills an unarmed blackness male, sit at the front during the funeral, with the family unit. Before we know the specifics, who did what and whether the shooting was justified, permit usa know that you value the life of that boyfriend about to be lowered into the footing. Blue lives matter, white lives matter, and black lives matter.

3) When people say, "The state has never been more than divided," what they mean is "White folks take never been this aroused."

America has always been more than divided than today. Offset, we had slavery. And then we had mass lynching and Jim Crow. Nosotros had Japanese-Americans in internment camps during WWII. Until the reforms of the 60s, Americans had to attend split up schools, eat at separate counters, and utilize separate bathrooms. None of this exists in 2016, and we are so much better for information technology.

What has changed significantly is that the constitutional and legal ability of white males over women and people of color is gone. In 2016, white men cannot hang blackness men amid a crowd for whistling at a white adult female, they cannot preclude black folks from trying to vote, and they no longer go to keep all the best jobs for themselves. This is new in America. When you accept less coin and power than you did yesterday, it is natural to get upset.

President Trump, only you can assist these people see that ignorance is the true enemy, that education is the key for all of usa to succeed. Breaking the cycle of poverty in any lodge is brutally difficult. Poor white and poorly-educated in today's land is not that different from poor black and poorly-educated.

If you truly want to go a sense for what information technology'southward like to exist a minority and exist a President for all Americans, spend one dinner every week equally the simply white person in a room total of people of color, even in The White Business firm. Make sure that no i on your Clandestine Service detail that dark is white. Get comfy. Your children and grandchildren will exist in the minority by 2044. America will be more brownish than white very soon. If you can commencement to come across the globe from a different perspective, you can truly Make America One.

God Bless You lot, Mr. Trump. And God Anoint America.

Sincerely,

Seth Berger

Seth Berger is head boys basketball coach at The Westtown Schoolhouse. He was Founder/CEO of And1 basketball game apparel company. He has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Wharton.

Header photo: Protests confronting the ballot of Donald Trump. By Lorie Shaull, via Flickr.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/dear-president-elect-trump/

Dear President-Elect Trump