Since the election of Donald Trump, news outlets and social media accounts have swelled with reports of swastikas at schools, racist taunts, and other hate-fueled attacks and acts of intimidation.

In the latest of these incidents, a young Army servicewoman was chased down and verbally assaulted by a racist motorist yesterday.

 

Geminia Aimable, 19, described the encounter in a Facebook post, explaining that the man screamed racial slurs and told her to kill herself for being black and serving in the military.

In her post, she wrote:

 

“In my 19 years of living… I have never been called a nigger. To my face at least. Yet today, in my uniform, a man cut me off. Just to then later FOLLOW me. I took all these crazy streets to shake him off. I get to a red light to get to my destination and out of nowhere. He comes banging on my window cursing me out… and proceeding to call me a nigger. Told me to never forget that I am nothing but a nigger and that us niggers do not deserve to serve this very country and to take off my uniform and to kill myself. I cannot believe that he said that to me. Not like I provoked him. He told me it pisses him off that we as African Americans are allowed to be in the military.. now I have nothing against Caucasian’s. My aunt and uncles and cousins are white. To me we all bleed the same. But it’s so sad that racism is still so very prominent & that people genuinely hate anyone that’s not the same color as them.. this man really made me realize a lot today and first handedly realize that racism just doesn’t seem to go away.

 

Yet I raised my hand to defend all (even if I’m not infantry) I still sacrificed. Unfortunately I also vowed to protect racist assholes also.”

 

This is not an isolated incident. Donald Trump has brought into the mainstream the kind of race hatred that had flourished only in the shadows before he came along.

 

His presence in the White House also removed the scales from the eyes of sane Americans who had held onto the belief that we lived in a post-racial society. Sadly, many Americans will still support Trump, despite a clear bigotry running through much of what he’s said, done and proposed.