Over the weekend, Charlottesville, Virginia,
exploded in violence over the impending removal of a Confederate
monument. White nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members, and
neo-Nazis clashed with counter-protesters, and the fighting
reached a horrifying crescendo when a white nationalist drove
his car into the crowd, injuring 19 people and killing one.
It’s no small wonder that tensions have escalated to a dangerous
point. After Dylann Roof brought a gun into an African American
church in Charleston and killed nine parishioners, a familiar
debate in the South around Confederate symbolism resurfaced, and
it was clear the ghosts that haunt the South from even before
the Civil War were far from exorcised. As a presidential
candidate, Donald Trump saw opportunity in a disillusioned white
working class and a tension that had been simmering below the
surface for decades, and he took full advantage.
KKK chapters across the Southeast have struggled in recent
decades to do much more than merely survive, but their numbers
have grown over the past several years, and KKK leaders credit
their resurgence to Trump and his white nationalist supporters.
In Tennessee, my home state, a Memphis corrections officer
resigned in November after expressing support for the KKK on his
Facebook page and posting that he hoped the Obama family was
hanged. A white supremacist conference has been held annually
near Nashville for the past six years. And according to the
Southern Poverty Law Center, Tennessee is home to 38 active hate
groups—more than almost any other state in the Southeast.
(Florida has 63, and Virginia has 39).
Since Trump’s election, there has been ample coverage of white
people—the rise of white nationalism, the white working class
that makes up Trump’s core constituency, the 53 percent of white
women who voted him into office. Much less has been written
about the people of color who live and work amid the rising tide
of white nationalism in rural red states.
I grew up in a town called Bells, one of the five small towns
that make up Crockett County in West Tennessee. The county is 83
percent white—I am also white—14 percent black and 10 percent
Hispanic. (For comparison, according to 2016 Census data,
Tennessee’s population is only 17 percent black and 5 percent
Hispanic.) The median household income is $35,000, and 19
percent of the county’s 14,411 residents live below the poverty
line. Most of the people I went to school with are still there.
The area is deeply rural—the main highway that winds through the
county is framed by cotton fields and pastures where cows keep a
lazy watch over passing cars. Friday night football reigns
supreme; game attendance is only second in importance to church.
Many families have been here for generations, passing down their
farmland and businesses to their children and grandchildren.
It can be a lovely place to live, but in counties like Crockett,
it’s hard to be anything other than white. So I decided to go
back home and talk to the people I should have been talking to
all along—people of color who live and work and go to school
with white Trump supporters. They told me how it feels to live
among neighbors who voted against their best interests and—worst
case—their basic existence.
Madyson Turner: “With the way it’s going now, I’m actually
scared that I won’t make it.”
I remember high-school Madyson Turner as a vibrant young black
woman with a sense of humor that could dissipate tension in any
room. (Turner’s name has been changed here to protect her
privacy.) But when we meet up in a Subway sandwich shop in
Alamo, there’s a new weight to her shoulders, and her infectious
laugh doesn’t come quite so easily.
“I wake up, and I never know, am I gonna get called the ‘n word’
today? Am I gonna have to defend my education?”
When she first began to see reports about the violence in
Charlottesville, Turner thought it was a tasteless joke. Then
she saw videos of the clash on Saturday, and her phone rang—her
boyfriend was calling to check on her and process what was
happening. He sounded upset. What he said tore at her: “I would
rather the world end instead of us having to keep dealing with
this stuff.” What hurt her more was the realization that she
agreed with him.
“With the way it’s going now, I’m actually scared that I won’t
make it,” she said to me in a text message.
Turner tells me that over the past year, life for her family has
changed. She hints that her parents have been in West Tennessee
long enough to know which families fought against civil rights
“back in the day.” Since Trump’s election, they’ve warned her to
steer clear of a list of people that is too long for comfort.
The day after the November presidential election, Turner went
with her mother to the store, and they both kept their heads
down. “We just feel like we don’t belong here anymore,” she
says.
Turner’s mom, who cleans houses in town for a living, went to
work a couple of days after that, and her employer, an older
white woman, brought up the results of the recent election. The
two had talked politics before—Turner’s mom is a Democrat, and
her employer is a Republican. “Well, you might as well come and
live with me now,” the employer said. “You gonna be mine
eventually.”
She called her daughter in tears. Turner immediately got in her
car and picked her mother up to bring her home.
Last year before the election, a young woman Turner described as
one of her best friends casually mentioned she hoped for a Trump
victory so that he might “do away with some of these African
American people.” She quickly clarified that she wasn’t
referring to Turner’s “type,” but when Turner sharply asked her
what she meant, she couldn’t answer. Another friend assured her
that it would be okay if Trump won the election because she
would convince her parents to purchase Turner’s family as their
new slaves. In a place where a few large plantation-style houses
remain scattered through the county, the “joke” feels a lot like
a threat.
“I saw a lot of true colors from a lot of people since the
election—down with African Americans, down with Hispanics, build
the wall, even for the legal ones,” she says. “It really hurts.”
She works as a dispatcher for Kirkland’s, a home goods store,
where she handles shipping coordination, but she’s hoping to
move into a role that is more IT-focused. Even one of her
coworkers—a manager—insisted on seeing a copy of her business
degree for days, to the point that Turner finally gave in and
brought it to her to examine. It’s hard to not hear echoes of
birtherism claims that plagued Barack Obama throughout his
presidency in actions like those.
“It gets me emotional sometimes,” she tells me. “I wake up, and
I never know, am I gonna get called the ‘n word’ today? Am I
gonna have to defend my education?”
Alex Romero: “There are always going to be ways.”
Off a country highway, hidden a bit behind a curve in the road
populated by thick trees, sits a tiny church. The clapboard
building reaches skyward with a steeple that feels as if it came
up a bit short, and the parking lot is simple gravel.
On the Wednesday night I visit, the church booms with music. A
live band shakes the unsteady walls of the pastor’s office. Alex
Romero shepherds the congregation, which includes a lot of
undocumented immigrants, several of whom have had family members
deported. Many have become reluctant to leave their homes, for
fear of an ICE raid. “There’s been a lot of media about, ‘Don’t
go to the Walmart in Jackson, because immigration is there,'”
Romero says. They can’t distinguish between real threat and
hearsay, and it’s always better to be safe than to be sorry and
risk losing your family.
Romero heard reports of ICE agents arresting eight people the
week before we spoke; he’s also heard of Hispanic people in the
area getting stopped simply for looking Hispanic. Mother Jones
was unable to confirm those arrests, and the Memphis Commercial
Appeal reported that a federal Office of Personnel Management
website said there were only 23 ICE staffers in Tennessee as of
last year, although an ICE official told the newspaper the real
number is actually higher. Rumor blurs with reality, and anxiety
has been steadily rising for this community over the past year.
“We’re just waiting to see what happens, the loss that’s gonna
come,” the 39-year-old says. “We know it’s coming.” His fear
isn’t entirely unfounded—ICE arrests have risen nationally.
Between February and May, an average of 108 undocumented
immigrants with no prior criminal record were arrested each day.
For reference, that’s a 150 percent increase from the same time
span last year. In the latest sweep, according to an ICE
release, 650 people were arrested, and half of that group were
collateral arrests with no criminal record.
Romero, who has a round face, kind eyes, and spiky black hair,
emigrated from El Salvador with his parents when he was seven
years old. He’s the father of three children, ranging in age
from 8 to 19, and he works as a manager for Williams Sonoma in
Memphis, an hour and a half away. Trump reminds him of Fidel
Castro, the way his mind changes from day to day, the coarse
language he uses.
He’s hearing more stories from parents whose children relay what
they hear in the schoolyard: “You don’t belong here.”
One day, his daughter came home from school, frightened because
the other kids were telling her that Trump was going to send all
the Hispanics out of the country. He asked her how she
responded. “I didn’t say nothing because I didn’t want to get
mad,” she replied.
Romero told her that was the best thing she could have done. He
tries to alleviate his children’s fears by praying with them and
urging them to maintain trust in God, but he grapples with
uncertainty too. He’s hearing more stories from parents whose
children relay what they hear in the schoolyard: “You don’t
belong here.”
In spite of Trump’s speeches about “the wall” and escalating
border arrests, Romero says families will continue trying to
cross, largely out of desperation for a better life.
Romero is saving up to become a citizen—right now, he’s only a
permanent resident. And in the meantime, he and some of the
members of his congregations have been attending anti-Trump,
pro-immigrant marches in Memphis.
“One way or another, we’re gonna be over here,” he says. “There
are always going to be ways. You know how many millions of
people have died on that border on their way here? It’s a risk
of life, but they take it because the mentality is that this is
the future—right here.”
Elena Garcia: “Some of them I even thought were my friends at
one point.”
My former classmate Elena Garcia—whose name I’ve also changed
here to protect her privacy—is diminutive and quiet, with a
sweet smile and a friendly demeanor. Her dark, wavy hair falls
nearly to her waist.
Garcia is a 26-year-old quality-control worker at Pictsweet
Farms, a factory that produces frozen vegetables, where she
makes $11.30 per hour, working five or six 10.5-hour shifts a
week. It’s the largest employer in Bells. She’s saving up to go
to college, perhaps to pursue nursing.
Garcia, who was born in Mexico, is a beneficiary of an Obama-era
policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that
granted a renewable two-year work permit to young undocumented
immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday
and before June 2007. DACA was supposed to provide protection
from deportation, but that’s changing: In February, the first
DACA recipient was deported under Trump. GOP leadership in 10
states, including Tennessee, sent a letter in June to Attorney
General Jeff Sessions calling for the end of DACA.
Garcia’s parents are undocumented, and she wrestles with the
fear they will be deported. If that were to happen, Garcia could
not travel to see them—DACA does not allow for travel outside
the United States. She’s not eligible for a passport.
“We haven’t been [to Mexico] in years and I don’t know what my
parents would do there with people they don’t know anymore,” she
said. “Me being such an attached person to my family, girl, I
would cry rivers.”
If her parents were sent back to Mexico, she is afraid they
wouldn’t survive. For years, she tells me she’s heard stories of
cartel violence that has killed people she knew as a child, and
of others who were kidnapped or have simply disappeared.
Undocumented immigrants make up about 2 percent of Tennessee’s
population, according to a report by the Pew Research
Center-Hispanic Trends. From 2000 to 2014, the Hispanic
population in Tennessee rose 175 percent. (Overall population in
the state only rose 15 percent.) Tennessee has the
second-fastest growing Hispanic population in the nation.
When Trump began to gain popularity, Garcia felt betrayed by
people she thought she knew, people we both grew up with. Late
last year, Garcia began to see a pattern on her Facebook feed.
One post said, “I can’t wait for Trump to take over, so we can
start building this wall.” A commenter added, “Yeah, and the
Mexicans are going to pay for it and work for it.”
She stared at her screen in disbelief. “Some of them I even
thought were my friends at one point.”
Before Trump started to gain traction in the rural Southeast,
she didn’t see or hear comments like that. Before, she says, the
racism “was in the darkness, the shadows.” She felt like she was
part of the community, and she earned her place here.
The day after the election, I was scrolling through my own
Facebook feed when an uncharacteristically emphatic post from
Garcia caught my eye. “It’s sad to believe what this new
president is causing…I’m seeing on my news feed all these racist
posts, comments such as ‘build that wall’ ‘get our jobs
back’…only spreading hatred, supporting racism,” she wrote. “All
I will do is delete those spreading negativity and continue
praying for all of us. GOD BLESS US!”
The comments started rolling in, mostly from former classmates.
The first was from a white man who argued that racism and
illegal immigration are separate issues. A Hispanic woman joked
that now non-Hispanic people will have to do the jobs like
“washing cum-soaked comforters at the hotel,” because immigrants
would all be deported now. A white woman retorted that white
people already do those jobs—they just work their way up out of
them.
In the months since she wrote that Facebook post, Garcia has
mostly avoided confrontation. Instead, she relies on her faith
to diminish fear and doubt. “Us Christians, we know who to put
our trust in,” she says firmly.
The Reverend James Perry: “We got another king in Egypt now, but
we’re on God’s side.”
On a Sunday morning in Crockett County, there’s really only one
thing to do: go to church. There are tiny houses of worship
tucked away just off of most main roads in the county, but
Antioch Missionary Baptist Church is smaller than most, and
smaller than Romero’s church, with a limited but vibrant
congregation. Pink carpet lies beneath creaky old wooden pews
topped with well-worn maroon cushions.
It is a black church, and I am very white, with
pick-me-out-of-any-crowd red hair, but it doesn’t matter—the
women hug me and kiss my cheeks just like the women in the white
church I had grown up in. The men greet me with large smiles and
hearty handshakes.
The Reverend James Perry stands straight-backed in the pulpit,
vases filled with white and yellow flowers on either side of
him. He wears a smart gray suit with shiny black shoes and black
rimmed glasses. As he preaches, he paces back and forth and
gestures energetically, occasionally pausing to wipe sweat from
his forehead.
“We shouldn’t be worrying about what Trump’s gonna do,” he tells
his congregation, “because God holds a king’s heart in his
hands.”
“We shouldn’t be worrying about what Trump’s gonna do,” he tells
his congregation, “because God holds a king’s heart in his
hands.”
Perry speaks with sincerity and conviction—he doesn’t strike me
as a liar, and if somehow he is one, he is pathologically good.
Listening to the sermon, I’m convinced that he believes every
word.
“Barack Obama done great things for us,” he says. “We got
another king in Egypt now, but we’re on God’s side.”
He tells the story of how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt,
and emphasizes the pain and suffering the people of Israel
endured before they were delivered. “We’ve gotta stay on God’s
side, because we don’t know, Trump might be the one to usher us
outta here,” Perry declares. “Whatever Trump does, raise up your
confession, because we can hold fast to what God has said—he
will deliver us.”
He assures his congregation that even if the path won’t be easy,
the end of the journey will be worth it—I take this to be a
metaphor for heaven. “How long were we in slavery? Then God came
and delivered us. He will do it again.”
Shouts of “amen!” come from behind me. As the service ends the
congregation claps their hands and sways in time to the music.
“No-body but Je-suuuus is keepin’ me alive…”
When I followed up with Perry and some members of his
congregation, they did not want to talk further about politics.
Their stance is simple—at the end of the day, they have nothing
to fear, because they trust their God. There is nothing more to
say.
Guadalupe Tomas: “We have to be proud that we’re Mexicans, and
we’re proud that we’re here.”
I meet Guadalupe Tomas in her father’s restaurant, amid the
pungent fragrance of food that her father, José, assured my
parents a couple of weeks prior would be too spicy for their
palates. (He was right.)
Guadalupe is just 18, but she speaks with more self-assuredness
than most adults I know. “We have to show that Mexicans are not
just stupid people that go to school and then we slack around
and all that stuff,” she tells me. “We have to be proud that
we’re Mexicans and we’re proud that we’re here—we have to show
them that working is a priority for Mexicans.”
When she’s not taking classes toward a business management
degree at Jackson State Community College, Guadalupe works the
register at the front of the store, one watchful eye on
customers, another on her younger brothers.
“I’m not going to feel bad about my color, about my race. I like
my color.”
When Trump was elected, Guadalupe was not surprised. During her
senior year in high school, Trump won a mock primary the school
held by a landslide. Some of her white classmates said they
voted for him because they wanted the Mexican people in the
country to be deported.
Unlike Garcia’s family, Guadalupe’s family has been in America
for generations. Her great-grandfather immigrated to Tennessee
and found work putting down railroad tracks. The family followed
him: first, Guadalupe’s grandfather, then José.
When José came to America, he worked on a farm with his father,
picking strawberries and squash. They lived on the farm—José,
his parents, and his brothers—and were told by their employers
that they were not allowed to go into town, and they were
specifically not allowed to speak to anyone outside the farm who
was not Hispanic. During the off-seasons, they migrated back to
Mexico, but when the drug wars escalated in Michoacán, they
stayed in the States for good, opening several taquerias like
this one.
The businesses have been successful, but now, Guadalupe tells me
they are seeing less frequent visits from the Hispanic customer
base. People are afraid to leave their homes, just as they are
in Romero’s congregation. Her brother told her he saw an ICE
truck out in the county recently as he was returning home from
work at night.
Guadalupe and her siblings are the first in the Tomas family to
be able to attend school. José says his father’s generation and
then his generation of the family were never allowed to leave
their agricultural work to get an education. Their story is
about as “American Dream” as it gets, but for some folks,
American only equals “white.” And changing their minds, even
while living among them, is a tall order.
“I asked my friend—she’s white—I said, ‘Who did you vote for?’
and she answered, ‘Trump,'” Guadalupe remembered. “Then, I start
to turn around and she says something about Mexicans.”
She pauses briefly, frowning. “I’m not going to feel bad about
my color, about my race. I like my color.”
When I ask her about her plans for the future, Guadalupe grins,
even as it seems her friend and all her Trump-supporting
neighbors come to mind. She tells me she wants to own her own
company someday, to show everyone “what a strong Mexican woman
can do.”
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