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11th Nov 2016

Racist graffiti, vicious attacks and hate crimes follow election of Donald Trump

There has been a sharp increase in reported hate crimes since the election result.

Alex Finnis

Racist chants and graffiti, hate crimes and physical attacks both by and against Donald Trump supporters have been reported since he was elected President on Wednesday.

Some of the most troubling events have taken place at schools and colleges. At Royal Oak Middle School in Michigan, students were filmed chanting “build the wall”, referring to Trump’s promise to build a wall along the Mexican border, in their school lunchroom.

Superintendent of schools Shawn Lewis-Lakin said that, “because of the strong intensity and rhetoric” of the incident”, families had come to him expressing concern for the safety of the students.

At Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, a black doll was found hanged in a lift.

And at Woodside High School in Redwood City, California, sophomore student Jade Armenio was attacked in the school yard after voicing her support for Trump on Instagram.

Armenio was asked if she “hated Mexicans”, before being slammed to the ground by another student and told: “You support Trump, you hate Mexicans”, according to ABC.

These are just a few of a number of disturbing incidents since Trump was elected in a shock victory over Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.

This graffitied sign reading “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN”, accompanied by a swastika, was discovered in Wellsville, New York, near a local high school.

Trump’s name was scrawled on the door of the Muslim Student Association’s prayer room at New York University less than 24 hours after the election.

https://twitter.com/sunnysayed_/status/796400988622114816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And a number of Muslim women have reported people trying to rip off their hijabs. Maha Abdul Gawad said she was shopping in a local Wallmart on Wednesday when another woman pulled off her hijab and said: “This is not allowed anymore, so go hang yourself with it around your neck not on your head,” The Independent reports.

This Twitter Moment documents a number of people of colour who claim to have been victims of hate crimes at the hands of Trump supporters since the election.

https://twitter.com/ManikRathee/status/796408766518292480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/Chris_Weatherd/status/796384091260207104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Meanwhile, white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan have announced they will hold a “victory parade” in North Carolina in early December.

American Nazi Party Holds Rally At Valley Forge

Image: William Thomas Caine / Getty

“Trump’s race united my people,” says the announcement, according to The Telegraph.

In Chicago, a man was badly beaten by a group of at least five others for being a Trump supporter.

“He voted Trump! Beat his ass! Don’t vote Trump! Don’t vote Trump!” shouted the group as they attacked him, The Metro reports.

Similarly to after the Brexit vote in Britain, there has been a sharp increase in the number of hate crimes reported in the US since Trump’s election.